The Fool's Journey
by Simone Landon
Summary: Ryou Bakura learns, from the most unlikely of persons, that immortality can be a curse when you're only a child of sixteen.
1. 0: The Fool

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi. Vampires belong to the collective unconsciousness.

To Neco-chan and Ceresi for liking it. To Skai, Meg, and Sam for the fact that the story exists at all. To sleep deprivation.

And, in the words of the great Joss Whedon: B.Y.O.Subtext.  
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#0: The Fool

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"Those who have crossed  
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom  
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost  
Violent souls, but only  
As the hollow men"

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It had been a normal day.

There had been a quiz in Geometry, but Ryou had studied for that. There had been another long lecture in Japanese class, but he'd taken enough notes that he would be okay on the eventual test. There had been a fight during lunch, but no one he knew was involved. As far as Ryou's life usually went, there wouldn't have been any reason to remember the day past getting up tomorrow.

Except for the small fact that he had taken his usual shortcut through the alley between a coffee shop and a small grocery, thus cutting a block of heavily trafficked sidewalk off of his trip and causing him to find Honda with his face buried in a woman's neck.

Ryou blinked, blushed, and then tried back away quietly without being noticed. But Honda chose that moment to let go of the woman, and Ryou blinked again before frowning as she fell limply to the ground. Honda wiped his mouth with a thumb, and then licked it clean.

Ryou began backing away again, just as carefully, but this time it was out of reptilian instinct rather than societal embarrassment.

The movement caught Honda's eye, and for a moment he and Ryou just stared at each other.

"H-Honda-kun?" Ryou began hesitantly. His gaze flicked back to the woman on the ground, despite the fact that he didn't think it was smart to look away from the other teenager.

The alley was shadowy, but Ryou could still see that part of the woman's neck was much darker than the rest. He shivered and jerked his eyes back up.

Honda blinked slowly one more time, and finally let his hand drop to his side. He took a step towards Ryou.

Ryou turned and ran.

He wasn't stupid. As soon as he was out of the alley, he squeezed his way into the middle of the crowd on the sidewalk and stayed there, even though it meant that he took the long route back to his apartment. When he reached the street where he lived, the crowd had mostly thinned away to nothing, so Ryou ran down the sidewalk and up the stairs with a panicked feeling in his stomach and his heart pounding in his chest the whole way. But he made it inside with no trouble, and locked the door behind him.

Once Ryou had calmed down and his pulse had sunk back to normal, his actions seemed silly. He **told** himself they were silly. He told himself that he was imagining things, or projecting them, or something sensible and rational like that. But he didn't go outside for the rest of the day. Instead, he threw himself into finishing his homework, cooking, washing the dishes, doing a load of laundry, vacuuming the carpet, and as many other minor things that he could think of. By the next morning, he had almost convinced himself that there was nothing important about yesterday.

Ryou still scanned the newspaper the next morning, though, looking for any articles on a murder in a certain part of the city.

He didn't find anything -- but then, he only made it through half the paper before he had to start out for school.


	2. 1: The Magician

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
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#1: The Magician

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_It began as most tragedies begin -- with an action whose consequences were not thought out_.

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Ryou smiled when he arrived in the classroom and spotted Yuugi and the others sitting in their usual corner of the room, but when he spotted Honda leaning over Jounouchi's chair and making fun of his cards, his hand tightened around the handle of his satchel. But when he called out a greeting after a split-second's hesitation, Honda only glanced up and raised a hand in recognition before turning back to the game. Anzu waved him over and started explaining how the game had gone so far, Yuugi smiled a hello, and Jounouchi was too busy chewing on his lip and glaring at his cards to say anything.

By the end of the day, Ryou had convinced himself that he had been seeing things yesterday.

However, his nervousness returned that afternoon when, instead of joining the others to wait at the bus stop, Honda called goodbye to Jounouchi and began walking down the street in the same direction as Ryou.

"Do you have errands to do, Honda-kun?" he asked politely, fingers gripping the handle of his case a fraction too tight.

Honda slung his bag over a shoulder. "Kinda, yeah," he replied, sliding his hands into his pockets. "You mind if I walk this way?"

Ryou shook his head reflexively. "No, of course not."

The two lapsed into uncomfortable silence at that. Ryou made a few attempts at conversation as they were walking, but Honda's replies were distant and curt at best. It wasn't until they had reached the street for Ryou's apartment building that Honda finally began speaking animatedly, dragging Ryou into a conversation about the quiz they had had in Geometry that morning and asking what he had gotten for the answers.

Ryou knew that Honda was almost as good at math as he was, so when he noticed that the other teenager was walking up the stairs to his apartment with him and forcing the conversation to continue, a knot of apprehension began to form in his stomach again. He reached his door and pulled out the key with a feeling of relief.

Ryou slid the key into the lock before turning and giving Honda a slightly shaky smile. "Well, good luck with your errands. Have a good afternoon!" he said cheerfully.

Honda leaned an arm against the wall. "Actually, Bakura, could I come in for a minute?"

Ryou's hand tightened around the key again, but he just blinked. "Um . . . if you. . . ." Ryou caught himself before he could issue an invitation and simply turned the key, before stepping inside and holding the door open.

The briefest hint of a smirk crossed Honda's face, but it disappeared quickly. The brunet straightened up from the wall and walked inside.

Ryou blinked again at that, and finally he shook his head. As he was putting on his slippers, he told himself that he wasn't just being silly, he was being ridiculous. He straightened and smiled at Honda, who was still pulling the guest slippers on. "Do you want something to drink?" Ryou asked as he set the case next to the wall and walked into the large room that doubled as his kitchen and study area. "I can make some tea, or there's juice, or soda if you'd like that."

"Not really," Honda said. "I prefer blood."

Ryou started and jerked around to stare at him.

Honda leaned against the wall, casually guarding the exit, and gave Ryou a half-grin. "I am a vampire, you know."

Ryou wound up staring at him for a few long moments, before finally snapping out of his shock. He glanced wildly at the door.

Honda gave it a look as well, before turning back to Ryou. The half-grin was now a full-fledged smirk. "Yeah, that whole 'needing an invitation' thing? That's a lie."

Ryou stared at him, then took another step backwards. "You . . . you can't be serious."

Honda shrugged, then walked over to the chair in the living room and sat down. "I am. Apparently it was some myth born out of the idea that you have to have a soul to enter a house." He leaned his head over the side of the chair and gave the other teenager a look. "You gonna stand there all day?"

Ryou shook his head violently. "No! You can't be a vampire. They're not **real**!"

"You saw that woman," Honda said flatly.

Ryou flinched and took a further step away. Honda didn't move, and he kept his head tilted, but he said coolly, "Don't try for the door -- I'll catch you. I **am** faster."

Ryou's faltered slightly, and finally he just sank against the wall beside the door. "How?!"

Honda snorted and gave him an annoyed look. "You have that sick obsession with the supernatural -- do you really need to ask?"

"But. . . ." Ryou pushed himself away and straightened, but the glare he gave Honda was half-hearted at best. "But it's **day**! How could you be walking around in sunlight if you're a vampire!?"

Honda held up a hand and let the sunlight trickling into Ryou's apartment through the window blinds play over his skin. "Yeah," he said idly. "That's a lie, too. There's a lot of them, actually. The crosses, the silver, the thing about wild roses, whatever the hell that's about. . . . Oh, and the shadows and mirrors shit. Bram Stoker was an idiot." Honda gave him a wide smile before folding his arms over his head and stretching out in the chair.

Ryou just continued to stare at him, so Honda finally lifted a foot and pointed it at the couch along the far wall of the living room, perpendicular to his chair. "Sit down already. I'm getting a crick in my neck."

Ryou obeyed, though he dragged his feet the whole way and made a wide loop around the chair. He sat on the edge of the cushions in the middle of the couch, a decent distance from Honda but still with an almost straight line to the door for when he had a chance to run. "You can't. . . ." Ryou trailed off and interlaced his fingers, giving up on denial. "What happened?"

"It's a long story," Honda said shortly.

Ryou didn't really want to know. "So you're . . . really . . . immortal and everything?"

"Yeah." Honda held his hand up again. "Never gonna die, never gonna get old, blah blah blah and all that shit."

Ryou frowned and leaned forward slightly, his awareness of the gravity of the situation slowly fading. "But if you'd not going to age -- won't you look like this forever?"

"Yeah," Honda said again, a hint of annoyance creeping into his carefully blank expression. "I've got maybe two more years before people realize I'm not growing, and then I'm gonna have to split. I doubt I'll be able to stay anywhere more than four years at the most."

Ryou, who knew the pain of moving around firsthand, made an empathetic face. "That's horrible."

"Yeah, well, she didn't do this because she liked me," Honda said, jarring Ryou back into his suddenly surreal reality. The other teen instinctively scooted a little further down the couch.

Honda smirked at that.

There was a long, strained silence in the small apartment before Ryou finally said, "I won't tell anyone."

"I can't rely on that," Honda replied matter-of-factly. "Jounouchi hates ghosts and zombies and vampires, and all that kind of crap. I don't plan on letting him know they're real."

"But I. . . ." Ryou trailed off helplessly.

"Don't worry," Honda said blandly. "It only hurts until you pass out."

He gave Ryou a very wide smile. His canines were a little longer and sharper than normal people's.

Ryou ran. He was fast -- he'd been on the track team for three years, before he'd received the Ring and become ostracized at his old high school -- but Honda was faster. The brunet shoved himself out of the chair and tackled Ryou as he tried to go past.

Ryou lashed out with a foot, aiming for the side of Honda's knee, but he was slammed into the thick carpeting before he could land the kick.

"Let go of me!" Ryou yelled as loud as he could, hoping that the neighbors might overhear and do something, but then Honda clamped a hand over his mouth and twisted his head up and to the side.

Ryou cried out at the sudden sharp pain in his neck, and he bit down on Honda's hand, trying to make the other teenager let go.

Honda slammed the side of his free hand against his spine. Ryou sank limply against the floor, feeling as though something had exploded inside his head. Sheer terror kept him conscious, but not enough to do any real good.

Then the Ring beneath his shirt began to warm up, that split-second warning sign that he'd come to adjust to, and for the first time in his life Ryou said a prayer of thanks at feeling it. He made a half-hearted effort to jab an elbow into Honda's ribs, to distract him long enough for the spirit to take over.

He winced painfully when Honda moved off of him enough to grab his arm and sling him roughly onto his back. The brunet gave him a grin. "Stop being so annoying; I'm not going to **kill** you," Honda drawled. "Not permanently. . . ."

There was a pulse from the Ring, and then, to Ryou's horror, it went cool again.

As he was trying to connect Honda's words and the spirit's actions through the fog in his brain, Ryou could feel the other teen carelessly pulling open his uniform jacket and yanking his shirt out from where it had been tucked in. He made an effort to shove him away, but his head _hurt_. . . .

Honda undid Ryou's pants and wrenched them slightly down his hips, before biting to the left of the pelvic bone.

"Aaaaaa!!" Ryou made a greater effort to shove Honda's head away, but the brunet grabbed his wrist and slammed it back against the carpet.

Ryou continued trying to squirm away, so Honda twisted his wrist sharply. There was a cracking noise, and Ryou fell still, drawing his breath in ragged gasps. "Stop. . ." he said faintly.

Honda continued drinking, and when darkness began to encroach on Ryou's vision he let it take over, grateful to be away from the pain in his stomach and head and hand.

.

When his mind dragged itself back into consciousness, he was lying on the sofa and Honda was back in the chair, watching the television. He'd replaced the guest slippers with his shoes.

Ryou noticed groggily that the pains in his neck and wrist were gone, but his stomach itched in that maddeningly healing way.

The taste of blood was in his mouth.

Ryou rolled onto his side and managed to push himself up. He gave Honda a confused look, then stared down at his hands. "You didn't. . . ."

"What? I didn't make it clear enough?" Honda asked sardonically. "Yeah, you're dead." He smirked, but his cold expression returned a second later. "But it'll take you about a week to really feel it. That's when you'll need to eat. It's usually two weeks, but you lost a lot of blood, so you'll have to replenish it faster this first time," he added helpfully.

Ryou just stared at him, trying to comprehend too much too fast. "I -- what?"

"Two weeks," Honda repeated slowly, sounding annoyed. "That's when the blood runs out. It's not medically right, but that's how it is." He shrugged.

Ryou shook his head insistently. "But I don't want to kill people!"

Honda glared at him. "It's not like it's a new thing for you." Then he shrugged again. "You could feed off people earlier than that. Then you could take less and leave them unconscious, but that's pretty stupid -- you'll get caught. It's safer to just kill them. I don't care one way or the other."

"Don't care?" Ryou said, confusion colliding with hystericalness.

Honda asked, "Who turned you?"

Ryou stared at him. "What? He did!" Then he paused, half-lifting a hand to his mouth. "He . . . he di. . . ." Ryou trailed off and looked at Honda.

The other teen stood up and slid his hands in his pockets. "I don't know why, but you can't say their name. Just a pronoun. So I don't have much to lose if you're stupid and wind up in jail."

Ryou stood as well, fists clenched at his sides. "Why?" he demanded, his voice choking. "**Why**?!"

Honda gave him a humorless smile. "You're sure not going to tell anyone now," he replied. Then the smile turned ugly. "And like I said, it doesn't happen because I like you."

He turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him as he went.

Ryou stared at the door for several long minutes, before his knees gave out and he sat back down on the sofa. Ryou wrapped his arms across his chest, feeling the solid metal of the Sennen Ring underneath his wrinkled shirt, and he finally gave in and asked, _Why__ didn't you do anything?_

[Immortality is something I could have use for,] Bakura replied, taking over Ryou's hand a moment later and flexing the previously-broken wrist. [Interesting. . .] he mused.

Ryou didn't have to put his reaction into words -- one of the small advantages of sharing body- and mind-space. The spirit laughed. [Don't worry, landlord. I know you have a delicate stomach. I'll take care of the meals from now on.]

Ryou bit down on his lip, holding back his tears, as he sank onto the sofa. He rolled onto his side and buried his face in the crook of the cushions, away from the sunlight that was still leaking in the blinds.


	3. 2: The High Priestess

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

This cut-out-all-html-text editing system no longer allows me to put Bakura's internal comments in the triangular brackets I typically use. This annoys me even more than the removal of extra spaces.  
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#2: The High Priestess

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He woke up on the couch, and nothing had changed.

Ryou didn't go to school that day. He didn't go the next day, either.

By that afternoon, Bakura was beginning to grow annoyed with him, since Ryou was breaking the routines that helped keep the spirit hidden. He threatened to just take over Ryou's body and drop it off in the classroom so that the teenager wouldn't have a choice but to be there.

He might have had to follow through with that threat the next day, had Anzu not shown up a few hours later with copies of the notes and the homework Ryou had missed.

"Thank you, Anzu-chan," Ryou said with a strained smile as he accepted the papers.

"No problem," Anzu replied. She gave him a worried look. "Do you feel okay? What's wrong?"

"I just . . . I don't know," Ryou said. "I just felt a bit down for the past few days."

"Ah," Anzu replied. "It's not flu season, but you might have caught something else. . . . If you're not feeling well tomorrow, do you want me to make you something when I bring over the homework? You shouldn't be on your feet if you're sick."

Ryou shook his head. "No, I . . . I think I'll be in class tomorrow. Can't afford to stay out, what with exams coming up, right?" He gave her a faint smile.

Anzu only gave him a critical look. "I hope you'll be better, but don't push yourself, okay? You really don't look good, Bakura."

His smile became a little wry. "Thank you."

Anzu shook her head and smiled. "No, I didn't mean it like that. Just . . . take care of yourself, okay?" She gave him a look of strange, intuitive concern.

Ryou nodded. "I will. Thank you again for the notes."

Anzu waved off the gratitude. "That's what friends are for." She took a step away from the door and smiled. "I hope we'll see you tomorrow!"

"Yeah," Ryou replied. "Goodbye!"

Anzu waved over her shoulder, heading for the stairs. "Bye!" she called.

Ryou waited until she had disappeared down the flight of steps before shutting and locking the door.

He completed the homework in place of eating dinner that night.


	4. 3: The Empress

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

This is one of the few chapters that are based solely on one set of traits for a card (in this case, the positive).  
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#3: The Empress

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"I'm late I'm late I'm late I'm late I'm late," Anzu chanted under her breath as she yanked the laces of her shoe into a sloppy knot.

Honda glanced over with a raised eyebrow. "You gonna turn into a rabbit anytime soon?"

Anzu yanked her bag over her shoulder, slammed her locker shut, and then turned around and pointed a finger at Jounouchi. "If I get demoted from this class, or lose my part in the recital, I'm going to kill you," she stated before turning and running out the door.

"Good luck!" Yuugi called after her.

"Geez," Jounouchi grumbled, "it's not like I knew we were **all** gonna get detention. . . ."

"What did you think **would** happen?" Honda asked sarcastically.

"Watanabe-sensei would continue looking in the other direction?" Jounouchi answered.

"Idiot," Honda muttered under his breath. Jounouchi's reply began an insult war between the two.

Ryou finished tying his shoes and snapped his case shut quietly, hoping to make a quick and silent exit. His hopes died when Yuugi pushed his locker shut and whined, "I'm huuuungry. Let's go get hamburgers!" He glanced over at Ryou. "Do you feel well enough to go out, Bakura-kun?"

"I . . . guess so," he said slowly, noting that Honda had cut off the argument and was watching him out of the corner of his eye.

"Actually, I can't," Jounouchi said. "I'm supposed to be meeting someone."

Honda snorted. "This 'someone' wouldn't happen to be blonde, stacked, and a lot older than you, would they?"

Jounouchi eloquently punched him in the arm.

"Oh," Yuugi said, sounding a little disappointed. Then he added, almost off-hand, "I wondered why Mai-san's car was sitting outside."

Jounouchi stared at the doors with a look that resembled horror. "Oh, shit," he mumbled.

Ryou blinked. "When **were** you supposed to meet her?"

"Right after school. . . ."

Honda smothered a laugh.

Jounouchi huffed, then rolled his shoulders back and strode out the exit like a man knowingly headed toward his doom. Yuugi and Honda followed, with Ryou trailing slightly behind them.

Jounouchi walked up to the sleek dark blue car parked illegally against the curb and flashed a smile. "Hey ya, Mai!"

"Jounouchi Katsuya," Mai said, pushing up her sunglasses and giving him a flat glare, "what did you do **this** time?"

"It wasn't all my fault!" Jounouchi said defensively.

Mai made a noise too delicate to be called a snort. "I'm so sure."

"It wasn't! Watanabe-sensei just hates me, I swear!"

"She held us **all** after," Honda mentioned. "And you're the one who threw the--"

"Shuddup," Jounouchi interrupted.

Mai shook her head and let her shades fall back into place. "Well, get in," she said with a smile, starting the engine. "We'll just be getting there later."

"Yeah, sorry," Jounouchi mumbled, opening the door. He turned around slightly. "I'll see you guys later!"

"See ya," Honda replied.

"Have fun!" Yuugi added.

"Bye," Ryou said with a little wave, taking a step away from the other two.

Jounouchi slid into the seat and slammed the door shut, and Mai peeled out as soon as he'd put on his seatbelt.

Once they were gone, Honda slid his hands in his pockets. "Hey, Yuugi, I'll take a raincheck on the burgers. I've gotta run some errands for my mom."

Yuugi nodded. "Okay. See you tomorrow!"

Honda turned and walked off, waving an arm in farewell. Yuugi watched him go with a slightly crestfallen look, before sighing and letting his shoulders drop. He glanced over at Ryou. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow too?"

Ryou shifted slightly, twisting his fingers around the handle of his case. The scar near his hip still itched, but everything today had been so **normal**. . . . He couldn't really be dead, could he? He could feel his heart beating. . . .

Ryou smiled. "Actually, I'm still up for a hamburger. Unless you have somewhere to be," he added.

Yuugi perked up. "No, no, I'm good! Where do you want to go?"

Ryou bit his lip. "I don't really eat a lot of burgers. . ." he answered. "Where do you suggest?"

Yuugi pondered. "Well, there's a place just a few blocks over that's pretty cheap **and** good. How 'bout there?"

"Sure!" Ryou agreed, and Yuugi gave him another grin before heading off to the left. Ryou loosened his grip on the handle and followed.


	5. 4: The Emperor

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

And now the site isn't allowing the brackets around Yami Bakura's dialogue. What is going on here? Are they going to disallow the fucking parentheses next?  
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#4: The Emperor

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Ryou shut and locked the door behind him, and slid out of his shoes. He put his slippers on almost absently before setting his case on the kitchen table a few feet away.

The burger he'd eaten with Yuugi had been okay, but it had been lacking . . . something. He hadn't been hungry when he'd eaten it -- he hadn't been hungry for the past three days, if he was willing to think about it, which he wasn't -- and he hadn't been full afterwards, either. It was like he hadn't eaten at all. The same thing had happened with his lunch at school.

Rather than acknowledge the implications of this, Ryou did his homework. He watched TV in place of eating dinner, and went to bed at the same time as usual.

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It was two days later when he woke up in the middle of the night, stomach growling.

Ryou sat up in the fold-out bed that his couch converted to, hands splayed over his stomach. He stared down at the covers almost blankly, before glancing across the room towards the kitchen. He had all the fixings for sandwiches there, or he could make some soup . . . and there was even some teriyaki chicken in the refrigerator that was probably going bad by now. . . .

(There's nothing in there that's going to satisfy this, and you know it,) Bakura said flatly. (Lying to yourself is stupid, landlord.)

_No_. . . . Ryou shivered and closed his eyes. _I didn't want it to be real_. . . .

(What are you whining about?) the spirit asked in a bored tone. (I told you I'll do the killing for you.)

Ryou shivered again and wrapped his arms around his chest. _I don't **want** to kill anyone!_

(Too bad. You don't have a choice.)

_God_. . . .

(Your deities don't anything to do with you anymore,) Bakura replied. (Now go get dressed, and I'll find something to eat.)

Ryou's hands clenched into fists. _Some**one**! I'm not going to kill anyone! I'm **not**!_

Bakura's voice was growing irritated. (You're a **vampire**, landlord. It's what you **do**.)

_NO!_

(. . . Keh. **Fine**,) Bakura snarled. (Don't eat. Maybe after you've starved for another day or two, you'll be reasonable.) The spirit's presence withdrew abruptly from his mind.

Ryou bent over and rested his forehead on his knees, his arms still pressed against his torso. When his stomach growled once more, a strangled cry escaped from his throat and he shook his head rapidly, pressing his face against his legs.

.

When Ryou finally fell asleep again, it was curled up on his side with his legs pulled up to his chest, tear tracks dried on his cheeks, and the hunger eating away at his resolve.


	6. 5: The Hierophant

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
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#5: The Hierophant

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The hunger was only worse in the morning. Ryou managed to drag himself to school, but by lunchtime Anzu put her foot down and made him go to the nurse's office. He didn't have a temperature, but the nurse apparently thought he genuinely sick, because she offered to let him rest on the cot until he felt a little better or until someone else needed it.

Ryou took the offer, and even though he wasn't able to sleep he stayed there until fifth period. He left then, but only because Chemistry was his worst subject and he couldn't afford to skip any more classes.

.

After school was over he waved off Yuugi and Anzu, telling them thank you for their concern but he could make it back to his apartment on his own. Neither of them looked convinced, but they let him go.

He had only made it a block down and across from the school when an arm draped over his shoulder.

"Idiot," Honda said in annoyance. "If you don't eat when you get hungry, pretty soon you'll go crazy and kill the first thing in sight."

"I won't . . ." Ryou mumbled.

"Trust me," Honda said flatly. "You will."

Ryou didn't ask how he knew.

"Come on," the brunet said, using his arm to push Ryou away from the route he usually took home and towards the downtown area, "I'll go with you. This one time."

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They reached downtown around the time the first wave of people were getting off of work. The streets were crowded with men and women racing to the trains or subway stations.

"It's a lot better to eat during the day," Honda said, as a young man exited the store they were passing by and elbowed them aside as he walked away. "People are automatically more suspicious at night. It's one of those things where the myths will help you out."

Ryou made a noise of acknowledgement, twisting his case handle tensely.

There was a crack, and he had to move quickly to keep the case from falling to the ground. Ryou stared at the broken pieces of plastic in his hand. Honda snorted.

"You **are** stronger," the brunet reminded him.

Ryou stared at the pieces for a moment longer, before shivering and putting them in his pocket. He tucked his case under his arm and moved to catch up with Honda, who'd gone on ahead.

". . . And you want to go for the arteries," Honda added a few blocks later. "They come up from the heart, not go to it, so it tastes better. Veins don't have all the oxygen and nutrients and stuff. It would also be easier when to eat in warm weather than in cold, since the blood's closer to the surface, but you can't help that." He lowered his voice as they passed through a thicker part of the crowd. "And don't drink anything tainted, like from people who have AIDS or other blood diseases. You don't have to check; you'll know if you're standing next to one. They . . . feel weird. You'll know." He shrugged. "And that's everything she told me."

"Okay . . ." Ryou said, trying to process too much too fast. ". . . But the jugular is a vein, isn't it? So . . . so why are people always getting bit in the throat?"

"There are arteries in the neck," Honda replied. "The . . . shit, we just had to learn this in Anatomy. . . . The carotids." He rolled a shoulder, shifting his backpack so it sat more comfortably. "Y'have to be careful, though -- arteries spurt, since they're under more pressure. It can be really messy. Plus, they're harder to open." He glanced over at Ryou before staring back along the sidewalk. "You should probably just go for a vein anyway, until you get used to it and your fangs develop more."

"God!" Ryou burst out suddenly but quietly, still aware that they were in a crowd. "How can you be so, so . . . about this? These are people! And we're . . . we're going to. . . ." He trailed off and swallowed thickly.

"Are you hungry?" Honda asked.

Ryou didn't answer for a long minute, as one hand absently settled over his stomach. Finally, he closed his eyes, and got elbowed in the side by another stranger as a result.

"I'm starving," Ryou answered softly.

"Then shut up," Honda said. "And get used to it."


	7. 6: The Lovers

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
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#6: The Lovers

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They were nearly out of the area that could be called downtown and into the warehouse district when Honda said "There."

Ryou looked in the direction that he had nodded and saw two people heading down the street: a younger woman in motorcycle boots and a fishnet shirt pulled over a black tanktop, and a man in jeans and a rumpled sports jacket.

"Who are they?" Ryou asked.

Honda gave him a look. "I wouldn't point them out if I knew them," he replied. "You should know what they are."

Ryou closed his eyes and said nothing. When he opened them a moment later, something in his expression was hollow. "What do we do?" he asked dully.

"What the hell do you think? Get them out of the open."

"How?"

Honda eyed the couple. "There's hardly anyone around . . . we might as well just wait for them to walk past an alley and then shove them in." He slid his backpack off his shoulders and shrugged off his jacket as well, before stuffing it in the bag. At an impatient glance, Ryou did the same. Once he had the coat tucked into his case, Honda began walking slowly towards the two. Ryou followed.

"You go for the woman -- she's closer to your height," Honda said. "And don't forget to cover her mouth."

The teenager glanced down at Ryou's hands with that, noticed they were shaking, and snorted derisively before turning back to the couple.

They only had to trail the two for a quarter of a block until the couple began to pass by the mouth of an alley.

"Now," Honda said, and he suddenly sprinted ahead. Ryou followed a second later.

As he began moving, he realized that he was much faster than he'd been before. He reached the woman almost as soon as he'd started running.

Honda had already caught the man and shoved him into the alley. The woman was staring in shock, and had just opened her mouth when Ryou clamped his hand over it and pulled her into the area as well.

The woman stared at him with dark, pretty eyes that were just beginning to register fear, when Ryou heard a wet crack behind him. The woman's gaze shifted to look over his shoulder, and then her eyes widened. She abruptly sank to her knees, mumbling something against Ryou's palm. Ryou turned, keeping his hand clasped over her mouth, and saw that Honda had broken the man's neck.

He stared in horrified amazement, absently dropping his case. "Honda-kun . . . why. . . ?" Ryou trailed off and stared at Honda's eyes, his hand loosening.

"Don't say I never did anything for you," the brunet replied, shoving the body at him.

Ryou caught the man awkwardly, stumbling back and sinking to the concrete under the sudden weight.

Beside him, the woman opened her mouth to scream, but Honda darted forward and clamped a hand over it, causing the shriek for help to be reduced to a strangled noise. Honda used his momentum to shove her back and to the side, until he'd slammed her against the wall. Then the brunet grabbed her shoulder and, holding her in place, twisted her neck up and to the left. He buried his face in the skin, and Ryou couldn't see what happened after that.

He could hear the woman's next strangled scream, though, and see the tears of pain that began to drip past her tightly shut eyes and down her cheeks.

When she opened her eyes and gave him a desperate, begging look, Ryou shuddered violently and looked down at the body slumped across his lap.

He was **so** hungry. . . .

There was another choked whimper from the woman, but Ryou couldn't force himself to look up. Instead, he began to pull the man's jacket collar away from his neck, moving almost mechanically.

As he stared at the man's throat, Ryou realized just how hard it would be to get any blood from there. Honda had mentioned fangs. . . . The teenager ran his tongue over his canines, and they didn't feel any sharper than they had when he was still human. He was so hungry -- now how was he supposed to eat?

And it was going to get cold soon . . . and congeal. . . .

Ryou stared at the corpse for another moment, only half-hearing the woman's quieting cries, before reaching down and picking up the arm.

He pushed the cuffs of the man's sports jacket and shirt halfway up to his elbow, and brought the wrist to his mouth. Ryou hesitated a second longer, and then bit down as hard as he could.

The skin broke, but not enough -- Ryou wound up having to worry it, like a dog with a bone. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought about bringing a knife next time to make things easier.

Finally, though, he'd scraped away enough flesh to let a decent amount of blood spill into his mouth; and after that he began sucking as forcefully as he could, not caring about the almost obscene slurping sounds he was making because as soon as those first drops had trickled down his throat his stomach finally felt like it was going to stop trying to eat itself from the inside out. . . .

When the amount of blood dripping out of the man's wrist wasn't enough, Ryou began shredding the skin further up his arm even as he continued drinking. He was still ravenous. . . . _It's not coming fast enough_. . . .

A hand suddenly wrenched the arm out of his grasp. Ryou growled without realizing it and tried to grab it back, but Honda used the arm to drag the man off his lap and tossed the corpse slightly down the alley.

"You look like a rabid animal," the brunet said, staring down at him.

Ryou gazed up at him in confusion and said the only thing that mattered at the moment. "But I'm hungry. . . ."

The muscles of Honda's shoulders jerked once, involuntarily, before he dropped the woman into Ryou's lap. "There," the teenager said, looking away towards the opening of the alley, "have the rest. I don't need it."

Ryou buried his mouth in her neck, slurping up the blood still running from the wound that had already been made.

He continued drinking until it was impossible to pull any more up; and then he licked away the half-dried blood around the gash in the woman's skin before dropping her body and sucking the dribbles of blood off his fingers and hand. When he was done, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the metal wall of the alley, his breathing the slow and slightly labored kind of a person who'd just eaten a full course meal.

Ryou swallowed several more times until it was obvious that he'd gotten all the remaining traces of blood. Then he stretched slightly and let his eyes drift open.

Honda had left the alley, and Ryou had no idea if it had been a few seconds ago or right after he'd given him the woman. He hadn't heard him leave. The teenager stared at the exit for a few more moments, before letting his head roll back to the front. His gaze focused on the young woman still slumped over his legs, and the man lying face down a couple feet away.

Ryou swallowed again. His breathing, labored already, became a little more strained.

A moment later Ryou brought his legs up to his chest, kicking the woman's corpse away from him. She rolled partially down the concrete and wound up lying on her back, staring blankly at the sky. Ryou stared at the two bodies, and then he buried his face in his arms.

Half-nauseous and trembling uncontrollably, he sank into his consciousness and reached out for the other person in his mind.

(What do you want?) Bakura demanded, irritated at the sudden intrusion.

_Please take over and get me home_.

(What?)

Ryou felt the thief push forward enough to read what had happened recently in his memories, and when he heard Bakura's snicker his fingers twitched.

(Don't be so gutless,) Bakura said. (Put on your coat to hide the bloodstains and walk yourself home, landlord.)

Ryou kept his head buried in his arms as he spoke. _Please. I've never asked anything from you before. **Please**_.

Bakura didn't reply for several minutes. Ryou didn't move.

(Consider this the month's rent,) Bakura finally said, and Ryou could feel the Ring heat up a second before he was tugged out of control of his body. Instead of expending the energy to wake up in his soul room as he usually did, he let himself fall into unconsciousness.


	8. 7: The Chariot

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
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#7: The Chariot

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When Bakura put him back into control of their body, Ryou found himself standing in the center of his living room. He glanced down at his feet, saw that the spirit had once again not bothered to take off his shoes, and walked mutely back to the door to trade them for his slippers.

(I removed the bodies,) Bakura stated, making Ryou flinch. (And I wiped off your fingerprints as well. I was even magnanimous enough to clean up Honda's, in case he has any more information that could be useful . . . though I doubt it.) The spirit snorted. (That was just sloppy. I know all the police in this city are either corrupt or clueless, but he should have been arrested by now if this is his usual method.)

_Fingerprints_. . . Ryou repeated to himself.

(Yes, landlord. Wear gloves next time.)

_No_, Ryou contradicted, _that only matters if I'm already on fi_. . . .

His eyes widened, and then he leaned heavily against the closet door before sliding to the ground. Ryou stared blankly forward.

_Oh God, I'd forgotten about that_. . . .

(So I assumed. Wear gloves.)

Ryou wrapped his arms across his chest, trying to keep from shaking again. He closed his eyes. _W . . . **why**?!_ he demanded, wanting an explanation for life, the universe, and everything else.

(Because,) Bakura answered with more than a hint of amusement. Then he left.


	9. 8: Strength

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
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#8: Strength

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Two days later, Ryou was shaving in the bathroom. Once he was done, he rinsed everything off, snapped the blade out of its casing, and sliced across his forearm with it.

Bakura said nothing, but Ryou could feel the Ring warm slightly, leaving the thief only a hair's breadth from taking over if he deemed it necessary.

Ryou set the blade on the counter before he lifted his arm and licked the blood away. There wasn't even a twinge of pain when he ran his tongue over the cut.

But something about his blood tasted . . . odd. Stale.

(You can't feed off yourself, landlord,) Bakura commented, his words sarcastic but his tone neutral.

_Look_, Ryou said. _It's already almost healed_.

(It wasn't a deep cut.)

_But it's already healed_, Ryou repeated. _And my wrist was fine after I woke up that . . . and when I slammed my hand into my locker yesterday, it stopped hurting after just a couple of minutes. And I slammed it really hard_.

(So?)

Ryou pulled his boxers down enough that he could see the bite mark on his hip. _This **hasn't** healed. The scab fell off, but it's still scarred_. He ran his finger idly over the mark.

(I'd wondered about that,) Bakura said, and he surprised Ryou by appearing in the room, the wall visible through his folded arms. (Especially after he bit you there. There're no major arteries or veins in that spot.) The spirit raised an eyebrow. (And he seems straight. . . .)

Ryou frowned at the scar in the mirror, because it kept him from having to see the thief. "You're right. . ." he murmured.

Bakura raised a second eyebrow. "You didn't think it was odd?"

"No. . . ."

The thief snorted. "I guess you wouldn't," he replied. "Slut."

Ryou tugged the elastic of his boxers back up, staring at the counter. _That was before I met you_, he said. _I don't see why you care -- I stopped after you showed up, so it's not interfering in **your** use of my body_.

(Don't mouth off to me, host,) Bakura replied darkly. (Unless you feel like spending another week in your soul room again.)

Ryou didn't apologize, but he didn't say anything else either. He just began brushing his teeth.

When he finally glanced up a couple minutes later, Bakura was gone.

Ryou tossed the broken razor in the trash on his way out.


	10. 9: The Hermit

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
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#9: The Hermit

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"Bakura-kun?"

Ryou blinked and glanced over at the door to the classroom, before giving Yuugi a smile. "Hi!"

"Hi," Yuugi said. "Um . . . aren't you going to eat lunch with us?"

"Oh . . ." Ryou mumbled. "I. . . ."

Yuugi, still leaning around the doorframe, added: "It'd be great if you did. Jounouchi-kun's skipped again, so it's kind of . . . it'd be nice to have you there."

Ryou tilted his head slightly and half-smiled. "I thought you'd be happy to eat lunch alone with Anzu-chan."

"Eheh," Yuugi said, looking away and scratching the back of his head. "It's not like . . . it's only us . . . Honda-kun's here too. . . ."

Ryou glanced back at his desk and the notebook still open on it, the margins filled with recently-made doodles. A moment later Yuugi stepped into the room, letting his hand fall. "It's just . . . you've been kinda distant the past week." He gave Ryou a concerned look. "Are you sure you're not still sick? Did you see a doctor?"

"No." Ryou shook his head and gave Yuugi a reassuring smile. "I'm fine -- I've just been distracted with some things lately." He stood. "But yes, I'd be glad to eat lunch with you. Are you guys in the cafeteria?"

"Nope," Yuugi said, turning to the door slightly as Ryou picked up his case. He'd glued the handle back together and reattached it the same night it broke. "It's a pretty nice day out, so we're eating over by the gym."

"Ah," Ryou replied.

.

The silence while they walked to the gym felt slightly awkward, so Ryou tried to think of something to say. Finally he just picked up something Yuugi had mentioned earlier.

"Wasn't Jounouchi-kun in class today?"

"Uh-huh," Yuugi agreed.

"Then . . . is he skipping the rest of the day?" Ryou asked, vaguely confused.

"Oh! No," Yuugi clarified. "I meant that he left campus for lunch again. He's been eating with Mai-san a lot."

"Ahhh," Ryou nodded. "I see."

Yuugi raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember Jounouchi-kun ever skipping school except once. . . ." Yuugi grinned. "And even if he wanted to, I don't think Mai-san would let him."

Ryou laughed quietly as they turned the corner, and Yuugi waved to Anzu and Honda sitting by the wall.

.

They'd finished lunch and were putting all the trash into one box when Ryou said, "Oh, Honda-kun. Could I talk to you about something?"

Honda flashed him a warning look that disappeared a half-second later as he said, "Sure. See you guys in class," he told Yuugi and Anzu.

"Bye!" Yuugi said cheerfully.

They left the two behind, and walked back to the main building in silence. Ryou twisted the handle of his case before making himself stop.

Once they reached the back steps, Honda slid his hands in his pockets and turned to face him. "What did you want already?" he demanded.

"Why hasn't the scar healed?" Ryou asked.

Honda didn't need to ask what he was talking about. "It won't."

Ryou blinked. ". . . Ever?"

"Nope. It's the last permanent scar you're going to have."

"Oh," Ryou said quietly, staring at the ground. A moment later he said hesitantly, "And why did you . . . there. . . ?"

Honda snorted. "Because it's **permanent**, moron. It had to be somewhere inconspicuous."

"Oh."

Neither of them spoke for several seconds, and finally Honda turned to go inside. Ryou glanced up. "Where's yours?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

Honda tensed underneath his jacket. "Shut up," the brunet snarled, taking the steps two at a time.

Ryou blinked at his retreating form as Honda stormed into the school.

(Interesting,) Bakura said for him.

.

Jounouchi tore into class two minutes late, panting like he'd run the whole way through the building. Honda tripped him as he jogged to his desk.


	11. 10: The Wheel of Fortune

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

For those who have seen the Japanese version: does Mai speak with or without attaching suffixes to people's names?  
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#10: The Wheel of Fortune

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Three days later, that Monday, Jounouchi came in from lunch ten minutes late and looking like he wanted to punch someone's lights out. The teacher told him to go stand in the hall, and then gave him an afternoon detention when he slammed the classroom door.

Ryou glanced over at Yuugi, who was exchanging a look with Anzu and Honda as well. None of them knew exactly what was going on, but they could take a pretty good guess.

.

The four of them were lingering on the steps in front of Domino High, waiting for Jounouchi to get out of detention, when Mai's car pulled up.

Anzu stopped kicking her heels against the short wall she was sitting on and gave the car an unsure look. ". . . Should we go ask what happened?"

Honda glared at the car before looking away, and Yuugi chewed his lip. "I don't know. . . ."

"It couldn't hurt, could it?" Ryou asked.

Jounouchi picked that moment to walk out the door, shoulders slouched and hands deep in his pockets. Honda straightened, Anzu hopped off the wall, and Yuugi smiled and said, "Hey, Jounouchi-kun."

Jounouchi glanced over at him with a blank look, before shifting his gaze slightly and spotting Mai. His eyes narrowed and the blankness was rapidly replaced with anger. He turned and vaulted over the wall, taking off across the school lawn in the opposite direction.

Mai slid out of the car and shut the door. "Katsuya!" she called.

Jounouchi kept walking.

Mai's tone grew irritated, but she took off after him anyway. "Katsuya! Will you **listen** to me?"

Jounouchi stopped, but kept his back to her.

Mai paused once she was a few feet away from him. "Look," she began, "I'm sorry about what I said. I didn't think you'd take it like that."

Jounouchi twisted around and glared at her. "How did you **think** I was going to take it? Or was I supposed to be too stupid to understand, huh?"

"I **didn't** say you were stupid!"

"Right, not stupid -- 'immature,' was that it? Just some immature punk **kid**!" He spat out the last word.

Mai put a hand on her hip, glaring at him. "I did **not** say that. But you're sure acting like one, if that's what you're going for!"

Jounouchi's mouth twisted up in an ugly imitation of a smile. "You know what, Mai? Forget it. Screw it all. Why don't you go hang out with someone your own class, and quit degrading yourself by being seen with **me**?"

Mai threw her hands out to her sides. "**Fine**!" she replied, turning around abruptly. She tossed her hair over her shoulder before striding back to the car and saying, "Call me **if** you grow up, Jounouchi-**kun**!"

Ryou and the others -- who'd been watching the exchange with extreme discomfort -- were torn between calling out to Mai, who was climbing back in her car, and catching up to Jounouchi, who was taking off across the lawn again.

"Mai-san!" Anzu called, taking a step down the stairs. Mai replied by peeling out and taking the corner turn so sharply that Anzu flinched.

Honda vaulted over the same wall and ran to catch Jounouchi. Ryou, Yuugi and Anzu followed, though Yuugi seemed to still be listening nervously to the roar of Mai's engine as she speeded off.

Honda jogged forward slightly and grasped Jounouchi's shoulder. "Oi," he said. "What hap--"

Jounouchi shrugged his hand off. "Go away."

Honda made an annoyed face and caught his arm again. "Look, don't be--"

Jounouchi shoved his hand away hard and turned around long enough to glare at them. "Fuck off already!" he yelled at Honda. "I don't want to talk to you guys!"

"Jounouchi-kun," Yuugi said carefully, but the blond just turned around and began running towards and down the sidewalk.

They stared after him.

Finally, Anzu huffed and began to head down the sidewalk. "We'd better catch him before he does something stupid, like get in a fight."

"Maybe you should give him some time to cool off," Ryou suggested hesitantly. "He really didn't look like he's going to listen to anything we say. . . ."

"Yeah . . ." Yuugi said, "but I don't want to leave him like this. Honda-kun, what do you think--"

"Do whatever," Honda said, shouldering his backpack and turning around.

"Hey!" Anzu called. "Where are you going?"

"Home," Honda said shortly. "Bye."

Anzu stared at him as he walked away, looking a little flabbergasted. Ryou shifted on his feet slightly.

"Yuugi-kun," he said quietly, "maybe you should. . . ."

"Yeah," Yuugi agreed. "I'll go look for him." He glanced over at Anzu. "It might go better if I go alone -- he'll talk more to one person than several."

Anzu nodded slowly. "Yeah, I know. . . . Just be sure to tell him we're here, okay?"

Yuugi nodded. "I will." He paused, and then waved slightly to Ryou and Anzu. "I guess I'll see you guys tomorrow, then."

The two said their goodbyes and watched as Yuugi jogged down the sidewalk in the direction Jounouchi had taken.

Anzu sighed once he was out of sight, and her shoulders dropped slightly. She turned and gave Ryou a half-hearted smile. "I'll see you tomorrow, Bakura."

"Goodbye," Ryou said as she headed off. He watched her cross the street before turning and starting down the route that would take him back to his apartment.


	12. 11: Justice

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi. "The Hollow Men" belongs to T. S. Eliot, whom I forgot to credit in the first chapter. Shame on me.

Mai lives in the only American-style apartment complex in Domino. Go her.  
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#11: Justice

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"The eyes are not here  
There are no eyes here  
In this valley of dying stars . . .  
In this last of meeting places"

.

Ryou shut the door behind him, noticing absently that the 'snick' of the lock seemed louder than it had before. He checked again that there was enough yen in his pocket before heading down the stairs, on his way to the store several blocks away.

(You're wasting money.)

_I like soda_, Ryou replied.

Bakura snorted, but said nothing.

The convenience store was just a few blocks down from his apartment, and Ryou had used to do his small shopping there. Sometimes he had grabbed a can of coffee from the vending machine outside it on the mornings when he'd overslept and hadn't had the time to eat a real breakfast.

He was two feet from the store when he spotted the brunet walking across the street and past the corner. It wasn't hard, since there were only a handful of other people on the sidewalk -- but even if there had been a whole crowd, Ryou would always be able to spot him now.

He walked by the store's entrance without thinking and turned the corner, speeding up slightly until he was a few steps behind Honda. The other teenager didn't acknowledge him, and Ryou didn't say anything either; not even to ask if Jounouchi had finally talked to him after running off that afternoon. They just moved through the streets in a self-imposed silence.

.

It was already dusk when Ryou had left his apartment, and by the time he and Honda arrived at a much nicer apartment complex the streetlights were beginning to come on, even though there was still some light in the sky.

Honda strode past the gate, around the corner, and down the small alley created by the wall around the apartments and the gourmet food store beside them. Ryou followed, still saying nothing.

When they were a decent enough way in that they couldn't be seen instantly from the street, and there was still a bit of space before the apartments backed straight against the wall, Honda tensed and jumped over it.

Ryou blinked for a second at the wall, which happened to be a good eight feet high. Then he shook his head, took a few steps back, and ran forward and jumped over as well.

He was accustomed to jumping over hurdles and landing at a run rather than vaulting and landing flat, so he wound up losing his footing and scraping his jeans and palms on the concrete of the parking lot. Honda, who had barely waited for him to get over, made an annoyed noise and started down one of the roads within the complex. Ryou pushed himself onto his feet and caught up with him.

". . . Do you know where you're going?" he asked finally.

"I looked up the address," Honda said brusquely. "I guess she's not so great that she can't not be in the phone book yet."

Ryou began to get a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He also began to think it should have been there a long time ago.

And once they had gotten through the streets, climbed the stairs, knocked on the door, and had Mai answer it, Ryou seriously debated jumping over the railing and taking off at a run. But then Honda caught his arm above the elbow with a grip tighter than it looked, and Ryou just watched as a man walked towards his car on the pavement below instead.

Mai frowned in perplexity and said, "Honda? Bakura? What are you. . . ?" She trailed off, and Honda took advantage of the quiet.

"Mind if we come in?"

Mai raised an eyebrow briefly, then stood aside and held the door open wider. Honda stepped inside, keeping his hand on Ryou's arm until Mai shut the door behind them. Then he slid his hands in his pockets, watching the blonde with a blank expression. Ryou let his own hands hang at his sides.

The silence dragged on as Honda and Mai decided to have an impromptu staring match. Ryou shifted uncomfortably on his feet and glanced around the room in an attempt to distract himself. He spotted a vase of flowers sitting on the small table against the wall, and wondered vaguely if Mai had arranged it herself.

It was Mai who finally spoke. "Did he send you here?" she asked, a hand on her hip.

The corner of Honda's mouth curled up. "How could he?" he asked. "After you left, he took off in the opposite direction and we haven't seen him for the rest of the day. Even Yuugi can't find him."

All three of them knew the severity of that statement.

Mai pressed a hand to her forehead, shaking her head as she did. "That guy . . ." she murmured, the worry discernable beneath the veneer of annoyance as she turned away from them.

"Yeah," Honda said, pulling his hands back out of his pockets. "I just wanted you to know that."

Mai started to turn back around, but Honda moved too fast.

Ryou's vision went fuzzy for a moment -- he saw Honda move forward and wrap a hand around Mai's hair, wrenching hard and causing her to fall backwards, but he knew it had happened faster than he was supposed to be able to see. It hurt his eyes.

Mai started to yelp in pained surprise, but when Honda sank his teeth into her throat it turned to a scream that was smothered by the hand the brunet clamped over her mouth. Honda used the fist still wrapped in her hair to yank her head back further, and even through the brunet's hand Ryou could hear it when the pitch of her scream heightened.

Ryou wanted to cover his ears, to close his eyes, to run out the door -- but that seemed . . . disrespectful, almost. He'd come here of his own free will, so he couldn't look away at the last moment.

He shouldn't have come in the first place . . . if he had realized. . . .

(You knew this was going to happen as soon as you saw him, landlord,) Bakura said lazily, nothing in his tone revealing that he was seeing the same thing Ryou was -- Mai struggling futilely to break free of Honda's grip, half-screaming and half-begging Ryou to help her. (I don't know why you keep putting yourself into these situations. You aren't stupid. . . . Do you **enjoy** feeling powerless?) he asked curiously.

Ryou's hands clenched into fists. **_Shut up_** he hissed. _Just . . . shut **up**!_

Bakura made an irritated noise, but then Honda let go of Mai, drawing Ryou's attention. She hit the carpet limply, her chest heaving with heavy gasps. Ryou immediately noticed the blood smeared around the ragged wound on her neck, and saw that very little was actually coming out of the wound. A detached part of himself was surprised that she was still conscious, and guessed that Honda had been hurting her more than actually feeding.

"Here," Honda said, kicking Mai in the ribs and causing her to cough violently as her body was pushed slightly closer to Ryou. "Drink."

Ryou looked at him, startled. Honda wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand before giving Ryou an angry look. "What is it, Bakura-chan?" he asked nastily. "I'm not letting you off that easy. Besides, you've done it before."

Ryou stared at him. Honda stared back.

After a moment Ryou looked away. He gazed at the flower arrangement briefly, before closing his eyes. Then he looked back at Mai.

The pleading expression on her face was pitiful. She'd always been such a strong woman -- Ryou didn't want to see her reduced to this.

He tried to slip into his mind, to give Bakura control; but the thief stopped him.

_Don't make me do this_.

(You chose to come here, landlord. Accept the consequences.)

Ryou closed his eyes and shook his head. Honda said something to him, but Ryou was only listening inside himself. _You said you would do the . . . don't make me_.

(So you would rather leave her last moments to **me**?)

When the meaning of Bakura's words sunk in, Ryou shuddered violently.

He opened his eyes again. Honda's glare had shifted slightly to a frown, but Ryou barely spared the other teenager a glance.

He stepped forward and knelt next to Mai.

"Ba . . . k-kura. . . ."

(Fingerprints,) Bakura snapped, and Ryou started. Then he tugged on the long sleeves of his shirt until he'd pulled them over his fingers. He curled his hands into loose fists around the ends of the fabric, then slid an arm beneath Mai's side and lifted her up. He braced her back with his other arm, and her head sank against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Ryou said quietly.

Mai squeezed her eyes shut. ". . . no. . . ." She managed to make a fist and hit him on the chest. There might even have been some force behind it, but Ryou felt nothing. "_No_. . . ."

Ryou bent his head and bit into her neck before she could hit him again.

He scraped his teeth along the wound Honda had already made, using his incisors and tongue to make it a little wider, before beginning to drink. Mai whimpered in pain again, but it was quieter and muffled against his shoulder. When she tried to push away, Ryou's arms tightened around her; and soon she quit moving at all.

He hadn't been hungry when he'd followed Honda to the apartment complex, but . . . it was like eating a decent-sized meal, and then being offered some of his favorite dessert. He found room.

Soon, it was harder to get blood out of the wound, and Ryou vaguely realized that he was making undignified sucking noises as he drank.

He really needed to bring his knife, for the next . . . time. . . .

He jerked away with a small grunt. Mai hung limply in his arms; and when he let go she fell to the floor and didn't move.

Ryou was still as he stared at the wall across the room. Mai's arm had partially fallen across his lap, but Ryou didn't move to push it off. His hands were shaking, though it was hard to see with the shirt sleeves still pulled over them.

Ryou stayed like that until Honda grabbed his shoulder and yanked him onto his feet. He barely thought to lick his lips cleaner before the brunet shoved them both out the door.


	13. 12: The Hanged Man

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi. The quote in italics belongs to Saiyuki.

Ceresi: Heh. That's probably a good thing; I don't think I could finish this story _sans_ eyes.

DreamingChild: Your review for chapter ten cracked. me. up.

Sam: A fight between vampire!Honda and Yami Bakura would be really short, because I think Bakura's learned his lesson from Duelist Kingdom. He'd just be all: "Shadow Realm for **you**, bitch," and then there would be a Giant Man-Eater Bug, and then there would be no more Honda. And that would be sad.  
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#12: The Hanged Man

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_If only you didn't exist . . .  
I could have lost myself sooner._

.

Honda ditched him a block away from the apartment complex.

Ryou stood on the corner, waiting for the light to change. When it did, he wrapped his arms over his chest and walked across the street. Night had fallen completely, and Ryou moved down a sidewalk that was bathed in artificial light from street lamps and neon signs and cars' headlights, wishing that there was a darker path he could take to go back home. He slowly retraced his path towards the convenience store.

(You're not shaking as badly this time,) Bakura commented. (What are you thinking about, landlord?)

Ryou let one of his arms fall to his side, but he kept the other pressed against his stomach, his hand gripping the elbow of his loose arm.

. . . _He was someone else_.

(Death changes people.)

_But he's not always like that_, Ryou said. _I've been watching him. And sometimes he's the same person he used to be. It's like . . . like_. . . .

(Like all his humanity is tied to one person,) Bakura finished. (Jounouchi, it seems.)

_I don't want to be like that_, Ryou said, biting his lip. _Not like I just saw. But . . . I . . . I don't have anyone like that. I don't have anyone as close to me as Honda-kun is to Jounouchi-kun_. Ryou's fingers tightened on his arm. _But I don't **want** to **be** like that! Not like **that**!_

There was a long silence, and Ryou crossed another street.

Then Bakura said, (You have me.)

Ryou faltered, before freezing in place. He was consequently elbowed to the side by the person behind him, and he stepped back until he could slump against the wall. His breathing became a little strangled.

(And I'm all you'll **ever** have,) Bakura finished, and the vicious amusement in his tone made Ryou nauseous. (So there's no need to worry, Bakura Ryou -- you'll never be as paltry as Honda is.)

Ryou sank down onto the sidewalk, stifling a cry as he covered his head with his arms. A moment later he fled from his consciousness to the dubious sanctuary of his soul room. Bakura was annoyed to find himself in control when he hadn't wanted it, but he let Ryou hide.

He used the opportunity to clean up the crime scene, again, before buying the soda from the convenience store and returning home.

.

Ryou tried to skip school the next morning. Bakura, however, had gotten sick of this tendency and followed up on his threat; and when Ryou found himself back in control of his body, he was sitting at his desk. He avoided talking to anyone and doodled in his journals, hoping it would look like he was taking notes.

It was during fourth period a day later, just after lunch, when the police arrived and called Jounouchi to the office.

The class had a field day speculating. Watanabe, who had never liked Jounouchi much, even gave them a whole three minutes to talk before calling them to order and returning to the lesson plan.

The period was almost over when Jounouchi returned to the room. The teacher ignored him and continued speaking, until Jounouchi pulled his books out of his desk and started to walk back out again.

"Jounouchi-san, what are you -- Jounouchi!" Watanabe stared in shock, but the blond wrenched the door shut behind him.

Then the bell rang, and after the teacher left the class had even more of a field day.

"He **so** got arrested!"

"They wouldn't have let him come back to class if he was arrested."

"Maybe there were police in the hall, waiting for him?"

"It was only a matter of time, the loser. . . ."

"Then why didn't they take him to one of the police cars?"

"I bet they took him to a car on the other side."

"No, he walked out the front door. And there weren't any cops around him."

"How do you know?"

"I'm sitting by the window!"

"Oi, Mutou-kun, what's going on?"

"Will you guys shut **up**?" Honda snapped.

Mizushiro, who had gone to the same junior high as Honda and Jounouchi, sneered at him. "Hey, watch it. If your gangster buddy got arrested, they're probably coming after you next."

Honda's expression was cold. "After school, you're dead."

The pencil Ryou was holding snapped in two, but no one noticed.

.

News spread fast.

By the end of the day, Yuugi, Kaiba, and Anzu knew what had happened -- Yuugi and Kaiba because Mai was a duelist, and Anzu because Jounouchi's open relationship with an older and higher class woman had been a piece of the sophomore girls' gossip for the days that nothing particularly exciting happened in the school. When Yuugi and Anzu broke the news to the rest of them, Ryou didn't know how to react, so he stayed quiet and stared at the ground.

". . . Shit," Otogi said, and that seemed to sum things up.

"We need to find him," Anzu said quietly. ". . . We can't leave him alone right now. That's too horrible."

"But where would he have gone?" Otogi asked.

Yuugi shook his head. "I don't know."

"Where did he go before?"

"I never found him."

"The beach," Honda said. "He'll be at the beach."

Otogi looked skeptical. "Are you sure? It's not about Shizuka-chan this time."

"It's as good a place to look as any, I guess," Yuugi said. "We can look there, and then . . . split up?"

"Okay." Anzu nodded.

They stood on the sidewalk for a little longer, before finally beginning to walk toward the bus station. Nobody really knew what to say.

.

Ryou didn't know what kind of intuition Honda had used, but he'd been right. They found Jounouchi sitting on the beach, a good distance away from the area that the bus station let them out at. The blond had his legs pulled up to his chest, with one arm folded over them and the other hanging down, the hand curled into a fist. He was staring out at the sea. A copy of the day's newspaper was next to him, the paper growing a little damp from the humidity of the ocean.

"Jounouchi-kun?" Yuugi said quietly.

The muscles in the blond's back twitched slightly, but he didn't move.

"Jounouchi . . . I'm so sorry," Anzu murmured.

He looked away at that, and Anzu stepped forward and knelt down next to him, wincing slightly at the feel of the abrasive sand on her knees. She placed a hand on his arm, but couldn't seem to find any words to say that wouldn't be either trite or useless.

Yuugi sat down next to him as well, and Honda followed a moment later. Ryou took a couple steps forward, but lingered behind, the same as Otogi. For a long time, there was no sound but that of the ocean.

Before any of them could think of the right thing to say, Jounouchi finally spoke up. He was still looking away. ". . . She wanted me to go to college. That's what we were fighting. . . . She said I was better than this, better than some two-bit punk in some two-bit city. . . ." He clenched his fist tighter, and Ryou was sure that his knuckles had turned a strained white by now. "I was gonna make up with her. Her birthday was next month, and . . . I. . . ."

Jounouchi's voice had been fading with each word he said, and finally he quit talking all together and pushed his head against his arm. He brought the other hand up as well, fist still clenched, and hid more of his face with it.

Anzu murmured sympathetically, draping an arm over his back and pressing her cheek against his shoulder. Yuugi said something, but it was too quiet for even Ryou to hear.

Otogi, not a close enough friend to Jounouchi for the blond to be able to salvage his dignity if seen crying by him, had decently taken a few steps back and looked away. Ryou toyed with the damp newspaper.

Soon, a shift of weight told him something had fallen out of it and onto the ground, though it took Ryou a few moments to see it since the ring was nearly the same color as the sand. When he spotted it, Ryou surreptitiously picked it up and held it in his cupped palm before glancing down.

It was just a thin ring, and there were no jewels or other metals in it. The only adornment was a faint etching of a flowering vine that ran along the middle of the band. But, thanks to Bakura's influence, Ryou knew jewelry -- and the ring was real gold. 10 karats, at the _most_, but real gold.

He closed his hand over the ring and held it for a minute, watching Yuugi and Anzu try to comfort Jounouchi, before setting it on top of the newspaper. Then Ryou thought better of it and hid the ring between the folds again.

He glanced over at Honda, but the brunet was staring at the ground and it was hard for Ryou to see his expression.


	14. 13: Death

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
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#13: Death

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One day later, Jounouchi showed up at school again. Only, 'showed up' wasn't the right term for it.

Ryou was halfway to the front steps when he heard Jounouchi call his name. He turned around, saw Jounouchi coming towards him, saw the fist, and barely had enough time to get his footing before the blond punched him in the side of the face.

Ryou stumbled, but he managed to stay on his feet. Either the punch hadn't been as forceful as Jounouchi usually gave, or Ryou was getting more impervious to them. He reflexively covered his cheek with a hand and stared at the other teenager. Further away, he could hear Yuugi yelling.

Jounouchi glared at him, fists clenched tightly. "The cops had a witness. He said he saw some white-haired guy outside Mai's apartment before. . . ." Jounouchi clenched his fists tighter, and Ryou took a step backwards, eyes wide. Jounouchi's gaze narrowed at that, and he snarled, "It was **him**, wasn't it?"

Yuugi and Anzu were both yelling now, and they sounded closer, but Ryou didn't dare look away from Jounouchi. "I . . . I don't know what you mean--"

"Liar!" Jounouchi yelled, before jerking forward and wrapping his hands around the paler teen's throat. Ryou made a choking noise automatically, and Jounouchi's grip tightened, his short nails digging into the skin of Ryou's neck.

"Jounouchi-kun!" Yuugi yelled, as he and Honda tried to drag the teenager away from Ryou. Anzu was beside him, attempting to pry Jounouchi's hands off his throat. Jounouchi's grip just tightened more, and Ryou made another choking noise as his Adam's apple was painfully crushed. He yanked on the blond's wrists as well--but because he was being careful not to break any of Jounouchi's bones, he had no better luck than Anzu.

"Bring him out!" Jounouchi yelled, shaking Ryou. "Bring him out or I swear to God I'll kill you **both**!"

"Jounouchi!" Honda yelled.

There was a snarl inside Ryou's mind, and then he felt the Sennen Ring begin to heat.

_No!_ Ryou yelled, his grip on Jounouchi's wrists loosening even more. _Don't make things worse! I'm okay!_

Bakura hesitated briefly, but Ryou could still feel him just beneath the surface of his skin. Taking advantage of the pause, Ryou began pulling harder on Jounouchi's wrists.

Then Jounouchi yelped and jerked one of his hands away, covering his eye. A moment later a second die hit the remaining hand on Ryou's neck, and Anzu finally managed to yank it off. Ryou sank to his knees, cradling his throat. After second's pause, he began coughing as though the lack of air had actually been affecting him.

Anzu knelt next to him. "Bakura, are you okay?" she whispered.

Ryou nodded faintly, before looking up. Otogi, Honda, and Yuugi -- who at some point had turned into the other Yuugi -- had managed to drag Jounouchi to the ground, but the blond was violently trying to get free. He glared at Ryou.

"**Why**?" Jounouchi demanded. "She didn't have an Item! She didn't have **anything** to do with him! **WHY**!?"

Ryou shook his head, doing his best to look wide eyed and shocked. When he spoke, his voice was cracked from the abuse to his throat. "No . . . Jounouchi-kun . . . it wasn't. . . ."

"**Liar**!" Jounouchi yelled again, managing to briefly throw off Otogi and the other Yuugi.

At that, Anzu pushed herself in front of Ryou in an effort to shield him. "Jounouchi, **quit** it! Please! You're not thinking straight!"

Honda wrapped his arms around Jounouchi's shoulders and pulled down hard, pinning the other teenager back into a sitting position; and Ryou realized through Bakura's observation that the brunet was using too much force and was going to give himself away. If anyone noticed.

"Jounouchi!" Honda hissed. "Calm down. You're acting crazy."

The blond continued to glare at Ryou. "You killed her. I know it was you."

All Ryou could do was close his eyes and shake his head. His hands were still covering his throat.

"Yuugi."

Ryou recognized the clipped, cold, and slightly condescending voice of Kaiba Seto even as he opened his eyes. Before anyone could react to his appearance, Kaiba continued.

"Ikeda-sensei saw this little drama through the window and is on her way to the office as we speak. You might want to get the loser out of here before the police arrive." He turned and began walking away before the other Yuugi could reply.

Honda and the other Yuugi hauled Jounouchi back onto his feet, and began to pull him off the campus even as the shorter teen spoke. "Come on, Jounouchi-kun. School isn't the place for this."

Ryou missed Jounouchi's reply, because had Anzu stood and held out her hands to help him up. He accepted them, and gingerly rubbed at his throat.

Beside them, Otogi was watching Jounouchi be led away by their friends. "The grief's driven him crazy."

"He just had to lash out. It didn't mean anything," Anzu said. She touched the spot on Ryou's cheek where a bruise was obviously going to appear. "You need to go to the nurse's office. . . ."

"I'm okay." His voice was still scratchy.

"No you're not. Come on, I'll take you there."

"No, really, I'm fine. . . ."

"We'll walk you there," Otogi said. "It's an excuse to ditch some of History."

Once they were inside the building and Otogi was a little ways ahead of them, Anzu said quietly, "Bakura . . . what Jounouchi said, it wasn't. . . ."

Ryou shook his head carefully. "No. . . . It wasn't him."

Anzu nodded, accepting his reply. "Okay."

In his mind, Ryou could hear Bakura's amused laughter.


	15. 14: Temperance

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

Substations are those fenced up areas containing lots of metal poles, cables, and machines, which are used to transform electric current. You've undoubtedly gone past at least one in your lifetime. However, every substation I've ever seen has had barbed wire on it. Creative liberties were taken so that the characters would not have to sew up their uniforms later that night.

I don't know the exact comic, but Ryou is referring to the time in the Death-T, right after Anzu, Jounouchi, and Yuugi got out of the room with all the falling blocks, where Yuugi finally told Anzu and Jounouchi about Yami Yugi. (I'm assuming one of them filled Honda and Ryou in on this.)

Honda has been trying to kill himself for a long time, not just since they murdered Mai. He didn't want to be turned anymore than Ryou did -- the only difference between them is that Honda has handled it worse. Ryou, for what it's worth, has both Honda and Bakura to help him adjust. Honda was alone.

Whoo, long notes.  
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#14: Temperance

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_There's a death wish that runs through the recycled psyche of the undead._

.

Ryou missed most of his classes that day. After getting an ice pack in the nurses' office, he had to spend too much time explaining to the police officers that he didn't want to press charges and he only had a vague idea why Jounouchi had attacked him. It was difficult since Jounouchi was his friend, and he had known of Mai and been seen in a public event with her before, but between his own familiarity with the police and a few helpful comments from Bakura, Ryou was certain that he'd removed himself from the majority of suspicion regarding her death.

And after that was over, he ditched the rest of his classes and headed out into Domino.

.

Most cities have at least a few dozen feet of grass and trees set aside and labeled as a "park." Domino was no exception. But, if the parks are even slightly accessible, they always have someone in them, whether it's old men, joggers, drug dealers, or people with small children. Again, Domino was no exception. Anyone in a city who really wanted privacy wouldn't go to a park.

That's why Ryou wasn't completely surprised to find Honda inside a substation on the outskirts of downtown.

It wasn't that he had _sensed_ the other teenager -- it was more that Ryou had wanted to find him, and his feet unconsciously took him to the place Honda was at. Ryou didn't really want to think about why that was, so he didn't. Instead, he simply crossed the street and walked around the fence of the substation until he reached the side that was farthest from the road. The mesh that was wrapped around the chain-link was semi-transparent, so Ryou knew that Honda had seen him approaching, but the brunet made no sign of acknowledgement. There was surprisingly no barbed wire along the bar at the top, so Ryou set his schoolcase against the fence before tensing, jumping, and grabbing it. The mesh was slippery, so he had to scramble to get his legs up and over. But he didn't fall to the ground as badly as the last time, and he was grateful for that small dignity.

Honda was lying on the ground with his hands behind his head, several feet away from the metal poles of the station. Ryou undid the top buttons of his jacket as he walked, shivering faintly as the cold air hit his thin shirt beneath. He opened the first few buttons of his shirt as well, and then tugged the cord of the Sennen Ring over his head before pulling the Item out and tossing it to the side.

Caught off guard -- Ryou's thoughts hadn't betrayed his actions -- Bakura yelled at him, but Ryou forced the thief's voice to the back of his mind and sat down next to Honda, pulling his legs up to his chest.

"How do we die?" he asked.

Honda didn't reply, and continued to stare up at the sky. Ryou sat in the quiet for a few more minutes, listening to the cars and watching as they drove by. Then he wrapped his arms around his knees and clenched his hands into fists.

"How do we **die**, Honda-kun?" he demanded quietly. "You told me how to kill people; at least tell me this."

"I don't know," Honda replied.

Ryou blinked in surprise, and looked down at him.

Honda sat up, but he still wouldn't look at Ryou. "A stake through the heart doesn't work. Neither does silver, like I said. Or any other kind of knife. I-- . . . you just pass out for a while, and when you wake up, it's healed. And if you spill too much blood, it's like . . . some kind of auto-pilot survival instinct kicks in and you kill someone to replace it. It does the same if you try to starve. We can't overdose, we can't drown, I guess we can't asphyxiate. . . . I don't know."

Ryou touched his throat. It was fine now, but the bruises had been ugly and painful for a couple hours -- the longest Ryou could remember being injured since he was turned. He had a feeling that if it had been possible, Jounouchi really would have killed him.

"I haven't tried crashing my bike yet, 'cause if I live I don't want to have to explain why it's totaled and I don't have a scratch," Honda added. "And I figure if knives don't work, guns won't either. I don't know how the hell someone could behead themselves, unless they have a guillotine handy."

Ryou bit his lip. A moment later he unclenched his hands and covered his face with them for a few moments, before pulling them away again. Ryou fell back slightly so that he was lying on the ground and wrapped his arms over his chest. He stared at the metal poles of the substation, watching the sunlight glint off of them.

". . . What did I do to make you hate me so much, Honda?" he asked quietly.

The brunet stared at the gravel of the substation and didn't speak for several long moments. "You got Jounouchi killed in that darkness game you played at Duelist Kingdom," he finally said. "You got me killed, too. And Pegasus is dead for real, and so's whoever you got those locator cards from . . . and I'm sure there's more we don't know about. . . . But you sent Jounouchi to the Graveyard."

The glinting sunlight was hurting his eyes. Ryou closed them. "That wasn't me."

". . . Yeah," Honda said quietly. ". . . I know that now."

Ryou supposed that cold comfort was the best he could get.

He had nothing more to say, so Ryou lay silent and simply absorbed the cool October sunshine. He wasn't sure if he would eventually not be able to go out in it as he grew older, so he might as well enjoy it while it lasted. He didn't know anything, and Honda didn't know anything, and. . . .

Ryou bit his lip harder, but he quit when he noticed that he was cutting it.

"It's on my leg," Honda said, hesitantly abrupt. "The . . . the inside of my upper thigh."

Ryou opened his eyes again, a slightly puzzled expression on his face, but he didn't look over at Honda. "Huh?"

"My scar," Honda clarified.

". . . Oh."

The brunet had always referred to the person that turned him as 'she,' and unless Honda had some fetish for hot pants that Ryou didn't know about, there was a certain expanse of skin that couldn't be reached while wearing jeans, their uniforms' pants, or underwear. Ryou didn't need a diagram. "Maybe that's why. . . ."

When he didn't finish the sentence, Honda raised an eyebrow. "Why what?"

Ryou pushed himself into a sitting position. "Nothing. I didn't mean anything." He stood up and began to walk to the place where he had thrown the Ring, not giving Honda a chance to question him further.

The brunet frowned when Ryou picked up the Sennen Ring and slid the cord back over his neck, before tucking it back underneath his shirt and beginning to re-do the buttons. "Why do you keep wearing that damn thing?"

Ryou's hands paused over his jacket buttons. "Because . . . it's . . . because I. . . ." He seemed to give up then, and just finished buttoning his jacket. "You wouldn't understand."

The crypticness was beginning to irritate Honda. "Understand _what?_"

Ryou looked over at him. "Ask Yuugi-kun why he kept wearing the Puzzle, even when he thought that all of you would hate him or leave him if you found out about the other Yuugi-kun. You'll see."

Honda didn't reply to that, so Ryou walked away and jumped over the fence again. His landing was even better the third time around.

Bakura said nothing as he walked away, but Ryou knew that he was going to be monitored for a very long time after this.

.

A few days later, it was Monday, and Jounouchi finally returned to school again. The homeroom teacher had moved the seating arrangement slightly so that he was no longer next to Ryou, and he didn't speak much to any of them, not even Yuugi (his silence towards Ryou was palpable), and he ran off somewhere during lunch, but other than that things were as close to normal as they ever were when one was a friend of Mutou Yuugi.

On Tuesday's lunch period, when Jounouchi had disappeared somewhere again and Otogi was too busy finishing the homework he hadn't done last night because of an unexpected rush at his store to join them, Honda finally took Ryou's advice.

"Hey, Yuugi."

"Yeah?"

"I have a weird question."

Yuugi tilted his head. "What is it?"

Honda propped his arm on his leg. "After you learned about the other you, why did you keep wearing the Puzzle? You told Anzu and Jounouchi that you were worried they'd leave you if they found out, right?"

Yuugi looked surprised and uncomfortable. Ryou felt sorry for him.

The shorter teenager picked at his bento. "Um . . . I guess I . . . I just. . . ."

He glanced over at Ryou. Ryou looked down.

It was only a small gesture, nothing more than one Sennen Item holder looking to another for help in explaining something that outsiders could never understand. It said more than enough.

Honda shrugged. "Never mind. I said it was a weird question."

Yuugi looked relived, and Anzu shook her head. "You were right," she replied. "Why were you even thinking of something like that, Honda?"

"No reason."

They finished the rest of the lunch period in slightly strained conversation. Jounouchi was already in the classroom by the time they returned to it.


	16. 15: The Devil

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

Jizo is my favorite bodhisattva, because he screams Bakura at me. But then, Prince Mute from Princess Tutu and Ari from Okage: Shadow King, U2's song "I've Got You Under My Skin," and Guinness ads scream Bakura at me; so my judgment is perhaps not of the most discriminating type.

The rock-mound ritual that Ryou performs is one for children who died young. While it has nothing to do with this story, the reason behind the ritual is mildly disturbing. Information on it and on Jizo himself can be found here: onmarkproductions. com/ html/ jizo1. shtml.

The official drinking age in Japan is twenty, but from what I can tell, establishments will sell it to people younger than that provided they don't make an ass of themselves.  
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#15: The Devil

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Several days later, Honda came up behind him while Ryou was in the graveyard near his neighborhood. Ryou didn't bother to turn around to greet him. He continued piling his stones in front of the shrine to Jizo, and when he felt it was tall enough he folded his hands and sat quietly for a moment.

He no longer prayed. He didn't know if it would help Amane or hurt her, so he chose not to risk it.

Finally, Ryou stood up and began brushing the stray grass off his jeans.

"I don't think even he's going to listen to you anymore," Honda commented.

"It's not for me," Ryou replied. He brushed away a remaining bit of dirt and turned around, beginning to walk toward the exit. Honda straightened up from the grave marker he'd been leaning against and fell in step beside him. "I had a little sister."

Honda slid his hands into his pockets. "Ah," he said after an awkward pause.

"What do you want, Honda?" Ryou asked as they neared the gate.

"I had an idea," the brunet replied. "How we won't have to kill them."

Ryou faltered for a moment before turning to look at him. "How?"

"We have to eat," Honda said flatly, "but if we do it more often than every two weeks, we ought to be able to take less." He scratched the back of his head absently and leaned against another grave marker. "The problem is that we could be recognized. They'd have to either not see us or not be capable of remembering in the morning."

"Just knock them out from behind," Ryou said, pushing his hands into his jacket pockets.

(Get away from the fence, landlord. You two look suspicious.)

"Too risky," Honda replied. "If we were spotted we'd probably be arrested for being muggers."

Ryou pulled his hands back out of his pockets and motioned for Honda to follow him further back into the graveyard. "We're too close to the street -- people will notice us."

Honda snorted, but followed. "Using mickeys or anything like that is just gonna hurt us, too, but I figure if we just find someone really drunk, they might not remember anything the next morning."

"Alcohol goes into the blood stream."

"I **know** that," Honda said with irritation, stopping again. "But it's worth a try. If it affects us too badly, then we can just go back to killing. I just thought you'd like some way to get around that."

_Projection_, Ryou thought absently. Bakura snorted.

"Okay," he said. "I guess it's worth a try."

"Fine." Honda turned around and began walking away. "I'll see you tomorrow."

.

Honda showed up at his apartment half an hour before sunset the next day.

"I thought it was easier to do this during the day," Ryou said as he climbed onto the motorcycle.

"Idiot," Honda replied. "You attract more attention if you go into a bar during the day."

Ryou didn't reply, and took the spare helmet from Honda.

"I have a fake ID," the brunet continued, "so we can use that. Just try not to be noticed, and they probably won't ask to see any from you."

"I have one, too," Ryou replied as he strapped on the helmet. "I brought it."

The tone of Honda's voice made it sound like he'd raised an eyebrow. "**You**? What do you use it for?"

"Things," Ryou said impassively.

Honda made an irritated noise, but didn't ask for an elaboration.

.

They left the city completely. Honda drove through the small suburb towns surrounding Domino as well, and it was late before they reached a city he considered a decent distance from home. Finding a bar there wasn't much of a problem, and he picked one that was off the main streets but still looked busy enough that they wouldn't be too memorable. Ryou personally thought they would have been better off in the entertainment center of a large city, but he kept quiet and followed the brunet inside without a word.

Honda shoved him into a small, free table against the wall and ordered two bottles of Asahi's Super Dry at the counter. The man rolled his eyes when he looked at his ID, but sold him the beer anyway; and Honda just said "Thanks" and headed back to the table.

Ryou had switched seats while he was at the counter. Honda glared. "Move back."

"No," Ryou said, looking past him.

"I'm not sitting with my back to the door."

"I'm studying something," Ryou replied, reaching up and taking one of the beers. "Stop standing, you're making a scene."

Honda made a comment on Ryou's questionable parentage and took the other seat.

They stayed there for over twenty minutes, nursing the beers and talking to each other without listening just for the sake of looking like they were there to socialize. Honda glanced around the bar occasionally, but Ryou kept watching some point over his shoulder. It irritated the brunet, because he couldn't see what the other teenager was looking at without turning around, and finally he let out his breath in a hiss.

"What the hell are you staring at?"

Ryou glanced at the spot over the edge of his beer one more time. "That woman at the counter. She's been there since before we came in, and she's had three liquor drinks that I've seen. And she's wearing her jacket."

Honda gave him a look. "What?"

"The women who walk into bars without jackets, even when it's cold, are usually showing off," Ryou explained, still not looking at him. "They're more jaded and you can't tell much by their drinking. This one's wearing a jacket but taking hard liquor, so she's probably coming from a bad breakup, or maybe a turn-down or a fight with her husband. She should make a good mark. He didn't care about us, right?"

Honda was openly staring at him by now. "'Mark'?" he repeated, but Ryou set down his beer and stood up without replying. "Hey!" he hissed as Ryou began to walk away.

Honda turned partly in his chair and watched Ryou sit down at the counter, one stool between him and a mid-twenties woman in a dark jacket. He assumed that was who the other teenager had been talking about, but Ryou ignored her presence and made a motion like he was ordering another drink. The man behind the counter didn't even bother to ask Ryou for an ID, and handed him another beer.

Honda frowned, turned back around, and picked up the bottle on the table that Ryou had been drinking from. It was still almost full.

After a moment he set the beer back down and left the table. He took a seat closer to the counter, still mostly shadowed but near enough that he could hear.

.

When the woman ordered her fourth drink, Ryou finally looked over and politely asked what she was drinking.

"Shochu," she replied, looking over at him.

"Ah," he said. "What brand? It looks delicious."

She smiled a little patronizingly. "It might be too potent for someone young."

Ryou returned the smile with a self-deprecating one. "I'm actually in college, madam."

"Did you skip a grade?"

Ryou continued to smile pleasantly. "No. I just look younger than I am. It was a real trouble when I was applying for my driver's license," he added with a slight laugh.

"Oh," she said, possibly believing his story and possibly not caring whether he was telling the truth. "Please excuse my assumptions, then."

He shook his head. "That's quite all right. I'm told that a lot." Ryou gave her another smile, before bowing his head slightly. "My name is Kishiro Yukito," he said. "May I ask who you are?"

The woman giggled faintly. "Like your hair." She waved a hand. "I'm sorry, you must hear that a lot, too." She bowed to him as well. "I'm Shouko."

Ryou's smile quirked up to the side, just a fraction, when she failed to give him her family name. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Shouko-san."

Honda hid a snort in his beer and tried to remember the last time he'd heard so much politeness.

.

Ryou and Shouko spent almost forty more minutes flirting before Ryou convinced her to leave with him. Honda waited until the two of them were through the door before leaving as well, and he followed the path Ryou had taken without seeing the other teenager.

He'd made his way into the first level of a nearby parking garage when there was a bright flash of light. It only lasted a second, but Honda immediately started running towards it.

When he reached the second level and jogged halfway down it, he found Ryou kneeling next to Shouko between two cars, pulling on a pair of plastic gloves. He'd pulled his hood over his hair, and the Sennen Ring was dangling outside his jacket.

Honda stopped where he was, and Ryou looked up at him calmly.

". . . What did you **do**?" Honda finally managed.

"She's unconscious," the other teenager replied. "And she won't remember anything past the moment before I sat next to her. I didn't take her soul, so quit looking at me like that. She'll be fine. . . . Unless she's anemic. I should have found a way to bring that up."

Ryou was talking to himself by that last comment, and Honda interrupted him. "**You** can use the Ring?"

"No," Ryou said, looking down at the woman again. "But I can ask enough that he'll get irritated and do it to shut me up."

Honda didn't have a reply to that, and Ryou unzipped his jacket. He pulled a switchblade out of the inner pocket and opened it before looking back up at Honda. "Is anyone coming?"

Honda immediately pressed back against the car on the right and looked around. ". . . No."

Ryou nodded once, and he shifted Shouko around slightly before pushing her skirt up to her hips. He tapped the handle of the knife against his lip a few times as he studied her legs, and finally he pressed the blade against the outside of her right thigh.

"What are you doing?" Honda said before Ryou could push down. "You'll get more if you cut the inside."

"It will look more like an accident, at least at first glance, if it's on the outside," Ryou replied. "It's going to be obvious that it's a cut and not a scrape either way, but she won't question an injury on the outside as quickly."

"Fine," Honda said. "Whatever. Just hurry up before a car comes by."

Ryou pushed the blade in and yanked up, leaving a small, semi-deep wound that started bleeding immediately. He absently licked the blade clean as he stood.

"Here," Ryou said, taking a step out from between the cars and facing Honda. He held the knife loosely in his left hand.

The brunet stared at him. "What?"

"This was your idea, so you can have the first drink," Ryou told him. His lips curled up into an expression that couldn't be called a smile.

"Honda-chan," he added.

Honda's glare narrowed; and then he realized that in the sickly yellow light of the parking garage, he couldn't tell whether Ryou's eyes were blue or red.

He grabbed the switchblade out of the other teenager's hand, snapping the blade in and jamming it into the pocket of his jeans that was the farthest from Ryou. Then he stepped into the space between the cars and knelt down next to Shouko.

Ryou tucked the Ring back beneath his jacket and zipped it up, watching for any approaching cars or people.

.

The alcohol **did** make a difference -- her blood tasted funny. Ryou stopped drinking before he began to feel light-headed. He decided not to pick anyone so inebriated next time.

.

The wound wasn't bleeding anymore when they were finished, and Ryou insisted on respectfully resetting Shouko's skirt and putting her inside her car, using the keys he found in her purse. One they were finished and walking away, Honda watched as Ryou tugged off his gloves and tucked them into the inner jacket pocket along with the knife that the brunet had returned.

"So what was that 'mark' stuff?" he asked finally. "And all that junk about women and jackets?"

"It's just a term," Ryou replied. "And the jackets are something I noticed over time."

"Because you spend a lot of time in bars?"

"I don't go to bars much, except for one reason. I prefer street stalls. Does it matter, Honda?"

"I'm just curious how you picked up somethin' like that. . . ."

"I'm attractive," Ryou said flatly. "People like to sleep with me. I notice these things."

He ignored the fact that Honda was staring at him and kept walking, looking steadfastly forward. "After all, sex is like a role-playing game. You figure out what the other person wants you to be and act it. So you have to be able to understand small details like that."

". . . You're more screwed up than I thought you were," Honda told him, still staring.

"Did you park to the left or right of here?" Ryou asked.

"Right. A block from the bar."

"Then let's leave before anyone else sees us."

They walked back to the motorcycle in a cold silence.


	17. 16: The Tower

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
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#16: The Tower

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When Honda dumped him off at his apartment building, Ryou walked up the stairs, went inside, and locked the door behind him. Then he crouched down and covered his head with his arms. He bit his lip to hold back the sobs that had been building since he left Honda.

(If you're going to have these guilt trips every time you eat, it will grow tiresome very quickly, landlord.)

He was shaking, but he wasn't crying. It would be okay. It would be okay.

It wasn't okay.

_I feel like I just raped someone_, Ryou whispered, biting his lip harder.

There was a silence for several moments, and then a pair of sneakers that matched Ryou's own appeared in the corner of his eye. He looked up.

Bakura was leaning against the closet door, his arms folded across his chest and staring down at Ryou. (You essentially did.)

Ryou was wracked with another violent shudder, but he didn't look away.

(Any court would convict you of assault at the least,) Bakura continued. (But she isn't dead. That's what you wanted, right?)

"I. . . ."

"When are you going to accept that you aren't one of them?" Bakura asked in annoyance. "You can either use them or kill them, but that's the only choice you can make."

"But I don't want to--"

"I **know** you don't want to," Bakura said, cutting him off. "I have to listen to this drivel, after all." He was still staring at Ryou with cold eyes. "Get over your morals, landlord. You. aren't. human. anymore."

"Shut up."

Bakura ignored him. "**I** wish you would just kill them. It would be a lot less risky. Or have you forgotten **why** your fingerprints are registered with the local police sta--"

"**Shut up**!" Ryou surged onto his feet and punched Bakura in the face.

His fist went straight through the intangible form and hit the closet door; and Ryou quickly brought it back, cradling his arm to his chest with a hiss. He bit his lip again, and soon sank back onto the floor.

Bakura watched this, and a sneer twisted across his face. "Pathetic, host," he muttered. "Just when I was thinking. . . ."

He didn't finish, and disappeared into the Ring again, leaving Ryou on the floor.

.

They went back, a week later, and surprisingly found Shouko there again.

She wasn't there six days after that, though -- either they simply missed her, or she had become skittish. They left the place and went somewhere across the city, and found another woman.

Ryou slid into the old roles so easily it unnerved him. He had never been very good with girls his age, but older women . . . he'd forgotten how easily they fell into his lap with just a little charm and a lot of straight-forwardness. At least, that's how it went with the ones that he picked as marks. Honda glared at him a lot while he worked, but didn't say anything. Bakura said things that made him feel disgusted with himself, but that was nothing new. It was very easy. There were only two people Ryou had worked on that didn't make suitable marks.

The first had been a woman. He hadn't spent enough time on her to remember her name; something about her had felt wrong, and he'd left before really getting into the conversation. Honda later told him that she had a blood disease, and Ryou made a note of the way he'd felt for future reference.

The second had been a college guy, only a couple years older than him and also drinking on a fake ID. Ryou wouldn't have had a problem using Shuichi -- he was so persistent, it would have taken less than three minutes to get him out the door and into somewhere private -- but he knew Honda wouldn't stand for it, so Ryou kept turning him down. Finally Shuichi wrote his phone number on an old flyer and tucked it into Ryou's pocket before leaving him alone, but Bakura took over his hands and tore it up once Ryou and Honda were outside.

Mai's birthday had come and gone, and the police had all but given up on her case. There were other crimes every day in Domino, and hers wasn't the first strange death they had seen. Ryou was spared from finding an excuse not to visit her grave by Jounouchi flatly telling him he wasn't wanted. Honda had been planning to go, but the day beforehand he told Jounouchi that he had to watch Johji for his sister and couldn't get out of it.

And then it was December, and Ryou traded his plastic gloves for a pair of cheap cloth convenience store ones. They were easier to travel with, but he still burned them in the school incinerator and bought new ones each time they changed bars.

They were on the seventh bar and the eighth woman in the third city when they got caught. In hindsight, it wasn't surprising -- they'd gotten sloppy recently, staying in the same bar over three times, since the woman, Mearii, kept returning.

Ryou hadn't been paying attention when they'd walked in. Mearii always sat in the same area, and he was preoccupied with pulling off his gloves. He didn't look up until Honda, who'd been walking in front of him, stopped abruptly.

"What is--?"

"Get out. Now," Honda hissed, not letting him finish. He turned around and yanked Ryou's hood over his hair before pushing him towards the exit.

Ryou went, but asked "What's wrong?" at the same time.

"That's a plainclothes policeman," Honda said under his breath. "Sitting next to that bitch. I can tell. **Go**."

They got outside easily enough, and Honda tugged the hood of his own jacket far over his head and face before fishing for his keys. They began walking down the pavement to where he'd parked his bike.

"So much for that," Honda muttered. "We need to leave this city altogether. So we might as well go home until--"

"Excuse me, boys?"

Ryou turned around reflexively before either Honda or Bakura could stop him.

There was an older man standing behind them, and a woman was next to him. Ryou looked at her, remembered seeing her drinking with Mearii the last time they had been in the bar, and realized just how deeply he had screwed up.

"That's them! I recognize the shorter one!"

Honda swore violently, and Ryou stepped backwards before Bakura took over.

The Ring glowed beneath his coat briefly, and the woman and the officer both collapsed.

"What a nuisance," Bakura commented. He looked over at Honda, who had backed away. "Go home," he told the brunet. "I don't trust you to properly clean this up."

Honda's eyes narrowed. "You. . . ."

"Ikeda-san." Another man stepped out of the bar. "Ike -- shit!"

"Hello," Bakura said. "I assume you're this man's partner?"

The second police officer pulled aside his coat and set a hand on his gun. "Put your hands above your head and turn around."

Bakura didn't bother to reply to that. He just smirked.

Honda noticed the few shadows around them -- behind the neon sign of the bar, beneath the cars parked along the street, under their feet -- growing, approximately one second before they swallowed the entire area. The officer, Bakura, and the two bodies were lost in a controlled and impenetrable fog.

Honda stared at it for several seconds, before wrenching his hood further over his face and running for his bike.

.

He drove back to Domino immediately, and had to keep reminding himself to go the speed limit. A fake driver's license would do him no good if he got pulled over and had no proof of insurance.

Honda drove around Domino for several more hours once he arrived, and finally he pulled up in front of Ryou's apartment complex a quarter of an hour before two a.m.

Nobody answered the first time he knocked, so Honda kept knocking.

Seven minutes later, Ryou pulled the door open. He was wearing nothing but the Ring and a clean pair of pajama pants, and it was cold, but Ryou only stood in the doorway and stared at Honda. He had to make out the paler teenager's expression via the hallway lights, because the apartment was dark save for the light spilling from one doorway past the kitchen. It took the brunet longer to examine Ryou's face than it normally would, because he spent a good minute staring at the Ring.

". . . Let me in," Honda said, once he'd determined it was Ryou he was speaking to.

Ryou turned around and began walking back into the apartment, leaving the door open behind him. Honda stepped inside and toed off his shoes warily before kicking the door shut. He didn't bother to put on the guest slippers and walked to the doorway that the other teenager had gone through.

The door led to the bathroom. Ryou was standing in front of the sink, running cold water over the bloodied shirt in the basin. A garbage bag on the floor held a pair of unsalvageable jeans, neatly folded into a small square. Honda looked at the bag before glancing at Ryou.

The other teenager turned the shirt over. There was less blood on the back -- just two handprint-shaped stains near the hem, as if someone had clutched the fabric.

"I spend so much time around Yuugi-kun, I forget how terrified normal people get when they're forced into a darkness game," Ryou said, faintly stirring the water with one hand. He didn't look up as he spoke. "It's like they break as soon as they start. They never play -- they just beg for their lives, and that always violates some rule or another, and then I watch as he kills them. He always makes me watch, these days."

Once the sink was filled, Ryou flipped the shirt over again and shut off the water. He turned and walked out of the bathroom, and Honda stepped aside.

Ryou looked up at him again, and his eyes weren't cold, or blank. Just tired. It made the brunet curl up his hands and jam them in his pockets.

"If you don't have a reason to be here, Honda, I think you should leave."

Honda studied him for a few more moments before turning around and walking away. He shoved his feet back into his shoes and left without a word.

.

Ryou had already showered, pulled the bed out, and arranged the quilts over it, so all he had to do was finish dressing. He tugged the shirt sitting on the arm of the couch over his head, and turned off the bathroom light before sliding under the top quilt.

The pointers of the Sennen Ring were still buried in his chest, so Ryou spent a few minutes trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. He didn't bother trying to pull them out, or asking Bakura to do it -- he knew they would be out by the time he woke up tomorrow. After Ryou fell asleep, Bakura would no longer be punishing him, but abusing their shared body; and Bakura didn't do that unless he had a better reason than Ryou angering him.

He finally decided that it was easiest to breathe if he lay partly on his side with his legs curled up, so he settled into that position and closed his eyes.


	18. 17: The Star

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
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#17: The Star

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When he woke up the next morning, the Ring lay at his side, and it was snowing.

Ryou wiped the dried blood off the pointers, set aside the top quilt and his t-shirt to be washed, folded the bed back up, cleaned his fading wounds, and made himself a pot of coffee.

(You're going to be late for school, landlord,) Bakura said, the first time he'd spoken to Ryou since he'd sworn at the teenager for turning around last night. (Go put on your uniform.)

_Let me stay home today_.

(No.)

_If I go to school, I'm going to be wincing because of these_, Ryou said, placing a hand over his chest briefly. _Yuugi-kun and the others will notice. Otogi-kun will probably accuse Jounouchi-kun of hitting me, and then everyone will want to know what really happened, and it will be more conspicuous than if I just don't go_.

(. . . They'll heal within an hour. Keep your face blank.)

_Some of the blood got onto the quilt, and I'll have to wash it at a laundry mat, since it's too big for here. And I'll need to go somewhere out of the neighborhood to do that. And I want to run an errand_.

(What?)

_I want to look for books. On vampires. It's better to do that across town, too_.

Bakura snorted. (You want to look for books. On vampires.)

_If we're real, then there must be something out there that's useful. It's either that or looking for the woman who turned Honda, but there's no guarantee that she knows anything, either_.

There was a long pause, and at last Bakura said, (Fine, landlord. I felt like this would be a good day for an exercise in futility, anyway.)

Ryou ignored the sarcasm and finished his cup of coffee, before beginning to pack up the quilt.

He decided to leave the bloodied jeans in the bathroom until later that night, when he could sneak over to another apartment complex and put them in a trash bin there.

.

It was almost sunset when he returned. The owner of the last bookstore he'd been in had chided him for reading in the stacks, and Ryou had decided that then was as good a time as any to go home.

He was certain that he would be getting a call from his father when the man received the bill for Ryou's credit card -- the books he'd bought filled two sacks, and juggling those plus the package with his quilt while riding the subway home had not been particularly pleasant. But hopefully his father would be satisfied to know that Ryou had splurged on books rather than games. Ryou didn't think it would be necessary to tell the man what kind they were.

And besides, if his father called him about the credit card, they would be able to talk. And that seemed vaguely precious. Ryou knew he was going to have to fake his death or disappear by the time he graduated high school unless he could find a way to make himself look older than he was, so he had a feeling he would eventually regret it if he didn't talk with his friends and family while he still could.

Ryou set the two sacks beside the couch, and poured that morning's coffee down the sink before making a new pot.

.

He read through the books until he fell asleep on the couch late that night. Bakura briefly took over his body to dispose of the jeans an hour before dawn.


	19. 18: The Moon

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

The book Ryou and Honda discuss is a real one, by Katherine M. Ramsland. It was helpful to this story, even if the section on biology made my head go 'boom' and the part on masochism was too funny for words.  
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#18: The Moon

.

When Ryou's parents had asked him to move out, he'd agreed on the condition that they let him leave town and transfer schools. He found a decent student apartment in the Domino High district, which they paid for, and the last time he saw them both was when they helped him move.

(His parents had left their hometown as well; even after their son moved out, the families of some of the teenagers that had fallen into comas after playing with Ryou were still harassing them.)

Ryou occasionally saw his father when the man came to the city to check on his art museum, but Bakura Keita was more of a silent partner in the museum's ownership than an active one, and the occasions were rare.

But they still spoke on the phone sometimes; and his parents usually sent him birthday and Christmas gifts, though they rarely arrived on the correct dates. His Christmas gift this year was a black trench coat, which Ryou had viewed dubiously. But it fit him better than his old winter coat, so he'd traded the two out and called to say thank you.

Ryou's apartment was a one bedroom, one bathroom place. The kitchen was on the smallish side, but the living room was relatively large, which is why Ryou had picked it. He had packed up all the components of his Monster World game and set the game up in the bedroom; and he'd taken a fold-out couch from his old home and set it in the living room, where he slept. The only other furniture in there was a chair, a bookshelf, a potted plant, and a small television on a stand, all of them pushed against the walls to leave as much space in the middle as possible.

The television was a parting gift from his mother. Ryou watched it much more often than he'd used to, now that he never had to cook.

He'd originally kept his clothing in the bedroom closet, but after playing his final Monster World game with Yuugi, Ryou had transferred everything into the hall closet, and moved the few things in the hall closet to the bedroom one. It was inconvenient when he needed to hang up his coat -- when winter officially arrived Ryou just draped the coat over the side of the armchair -- but since he rarely had visitors it wasn't embarrassing, and it allowed him to see the Monster World table as little as possible.

At first, Ryou hadn't thrown the game out because he believed that the other Yuugi had defeated Bakura, and he thought that eventually he would be able to play the game again without worrying that someone was going to die. Later, when he realized that Bakura was still alive and that he would never play it without being haunted by memories and ghosts in the figurines, he still couldn't bring himself to throw it out.

.

It was still snowing on and off several days later when Honda showed up at his apartment.

It was a Sunday, and Sundays were the only days that Ryou didn't make his bed back into the couch in the morning. He had been lying on top of the quilt and taking a break from studying for finals by playing a game on his laptop when he was forced to answer the doorbell. He'd already known that it was Honda -- Ryou had opened the blinds to see the snow, and the brunet had to walk past the window to reach the door -- but he didn't answer until Honda knocked.

Ryou wondered why Honda never rang the doorbell, let the other teenager in, and went back to his game.

As he walked into the living room, Honda glanced down at the piles of books around Ryou's bookcase. He picked up one of the ones on the top.

"The Science of Vampires?" Honda said, raising an eyebrow.

Ryou ignored his tone. "I was trying to find information. That one was pretty useless. It's an American book, so it has all these references to Western stories and things that I've never heard of." He paused the game briefly before looking over at Honda. "The section on forensics was useful, though. And the one on making vampires might be useful, but I can't understand most of it. I don't like science, and it keeps talking about chromosomes and DNA and . . . viruses, and genetic stuff."

"Huh." Honda shrugged out of his coat and hung it over the other side of the armchair, before sitting down and flipping the book open.

They remained silent for a while; Ryou assumed that Honda had found the chapter he'd been talking about when the brunet muttered about needing a biology textbook.

Honda skimmed through the pages until he was near to the back. Then he raised both eyebrows and read the chapter title out loud. "'Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Vampire Sex But Were Afraid to Ask.'"

"That's also mostly references to Western novels," Ryou said, focused on the computer screen. "That, and the sadomasochism scene."

Honda looked over at him. "The **what**?"

"S and M," Ryou said, a little slower. Honda didn't reply to that, and Ryou glanced over at him briefly. ". . . You do know what sadism and masochism are, right?"

Honda pulled the book up slightly and set his features in a glare. "That bondage crap. Yeah."

"Bondage is a part of it, yes," Ryou mumbled, suddenly typing frantically on the keyboard. There were faint, tinny fighting noises from the laptop's speakers.

Honda swore uncomfortably under his breath. "You are into the freakiest shit."

"I'm not into S and M," Ryou replied absently. "Not really. . . . I knew a girl who was."

Honda snorted. "**That** must have been an awkward one-night stand."

"Kirie wasn't a one-night stand. She . . . was my girlfriend."

Honda looked up, but quickly covered his surprise. "Wow. I wouldn't have thought you could have a girlfriend. Didn't you get bored?"

Ryou didn't reply. A minute later, the laptop jingled, signaling that he had finished the fight.

"She was the first person I met who wanted to date, not just sleep with me," Ryou said quietly. "So we dated."

Honda flipped another page in the book. "So why'd you break up, then? You talk about her in the past tense."

"I met her at a game store. We had that in common. So eventually she played Monster World with me." He paused, and then added: "That's why I have to wear gloves. By the time she went into the coma, so had several others, and the police were getting really suspicious of me."

". . . ." Honda shifted in the armchair. After a few seconds, he gave up trying to find a reply to that and flipped back through the book again.

Ryou focused on the screen and didn't look at him

". . . Do you know you always say 'people' and 'person'?" Honda asked after nearly six minutes had passed.

"Yes," Ryou said shortly. "What of it?"

Honda snorted under his breath. "If you ask me, bisexuality's just a way of not being able to admit you're gay." He said that under his breath as well, but both he and Ryou had excellent hearing by now.

"Fuck you," Ryou said evenly, making Honda start. "You only kill women, so don't talk to me like I'm the only one who's screwed up."

Honda stared at him. "You . . . what the hell does that have to do with anything?" he demanded.

"The woman who killed you, did she look more like Shizuka-chan or Miho-chan?" Ryou asked. "I assume that's how she got your pants off."

Honda's hands tightened around the book's cover. "Shut the fuck up. Now."

Ryou fell silent, and he leaned up on his elbows and began typing fast again as he joined another battle. A quarter of a minute passed before he spoke again, this time with a hint of curiosity in his voice.

"How did you make her hate you so much, anyway? Did you haggle over the price?"

Honda slammed the book shut and shoved himself onto his feet. "You fucking little **shit**, I'll--"

He didn't finish, because the other teenager turned to look at him, and his eyes were clearly red. Honda cut himself off, and Bakura gazed at him impassively.

"I may owe you, Honda," he drawled, "but I won't tolerate threats to my landlord."

Honda forced himself not to step back. ". . . Owe me?"

"Yes," Bakura said. "You're the one who made me immortal, after all. This gives me a great advantage over Yuugi, I assure you."

Bakura watched with amusement as Honda clenched his hands into fists, but he didn't let it show on his face. Instead, he tilted his head slightly to the left. "Plus, my landlord has changed considerably since his death -- if you hadn't noticed. I like this cold version of Bakura Ryou much better."

Honda's hands slowly uncurled, and his eyes widened a fraction as he stared at him. The corner of Bakura's curved up into a harsh smirk.

There was a 'splort' from the laptop, and Bakura looked back at it.

He blinked, and then Ryou frowned. "I didn't have that saved."

If there was a reply to his complaint, Honda couldn't hear it.

Honda watched Ryou for a little longer, but the other teenager was ignoring his presence. Finally, carefully, Honda picked up his coat. He left without slamming the door, and didn't put on the coat until he was outside.

.

Ryou had opened the game at the point he'd last saved it, and was replaying his pervious moves when Honda left. Bakura was chuckling.

(You need to learn when you're pushing too far, landlord,) he finally said, once he'd gotten control over his laughter.

_You never have_, Ryou replied.

He started in surprise when Bakura manifested on the bed next to him, lying in the same position as the teenager was. Ryou tilted his head, letting his hair fall over his shoulder so that he could no longer see Bakura out of the corner of his eye.

(And since when have you wanted to act like me?) Bakura asked, once again amused.

Ryou bit his lip. _I_. . . . "I didn't mean it . . . like. . . ."

Bakura tsked. Then he reached out and touched Ryou's chin. His hand was intangible and went straight through the skin, and that sensation was enough to force Ryou to turn his head and look at him. "You should learn to lie in your mind, instead of resorting to speech. It only gives you away."

Ryou focused his gaze on the corner of the bed and the wall, and didn't reply.

Bakura propped his chin on a fist. "Tell me, landlord: wasn't that fun?"

Ryou closed his eyes. ". . . yes," he said quietly.

Bakura smirked. Ryou didn't need to look to know that he was doing it.

He jerked his head back in the opposite direction and shut the laptop, not caring that his game was cut off once more without being saved. Ryou curled up on his side, facing away from Bakura.

_Leave me alone_, the teenager said. _I'm tired, and I don't want to talk to you_.

(A half-truth this time,) Bakura commented. (That's an improvement.)

When Ryou gave no reply, he let out a dramatic, long-suffering sigh. (Very well, landlord. I can wait for you to come to terms with yourself. After all, we have eternity now, don't we?)

Ryou bit his lip, and curled up a little more.

Bakura was not made of flesh and blood, not any longer, so physics had no hold on him. There was no creak or shift in the mattress when he left the bed. If he had left it. Ryou wouldn't turn around to check.

.

Eventually he sat up and moved off the bed in order to resume studying, but Ryou was careful not to look behind him as he did.


	20. 19: The Sun

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.  
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#19: The Sun

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"--not going to spend time on her case anymore."

Ryou paused outside the doorway to his classroom. Someone had left the door open for once, and Jounouchi's desk was only a row away from it.

"But they never found the criminal!" Anzu protested.

"I know that," Jounouchi said. "But they say they don't have time for one unknown murder in a city like Domino. And it's not like her family is leaning heavily on them to keep looking, so. . . ." He let out his breath in a hiss. "They weren't doing such a fuckin' grand job of it, anyway. They let one of the suspects off with half an hour's conversation."

"Jounouchi-kun. . . ."

"I know, I know, Yuugi. Fine. It wasn't him. But **who**? Who has light colored-hair and a reason to kill Mai?"

Jounouchi's voice still choked a little when he said Mai's name, but Ryou no longer felt as guilty upon hearing it as he had before.

(This is growing irritating,) Bakura muttered. (If he needs a killer **that** badly. . . . )

Ryou was going to ask Bakura to finish his sentence, but then Jounouchi spoke again. "I tried to find some clues . . . **some**thing, but. . . ." He snorted. "Officer Minekura told me I probably screwed up their chances to find the guy by investigating on my own, the bastard. . . ."

"He'll be caught," Yuugi said with certainty. "Whoever did it. He'll be caught."

"I really--"

"No, Yuugi's right," Anzu said, cutting Jounouchi off. "He'll be caught. It's just . . . it's just not **right** for him not to be. His actions will catch up to him."

Ryou spotted another of his classmates walking down the hall, so he stepped into the room before he could be seen eavesdropping.

"Hello, everyone!" he said cheerfully.

"Oh, hey, Bakura-kun!" Yuugi replied, a little startled. Ryou ignored the jump and gave the three of them a smile, making sure to keep his lips closed as he did. He started putting his books for their first class into his desk.

.

Ryou's canine teeth had slowly chipped and grown and reshaped themselves into the fangs that Honda had once mentioned to him a few months ago. When he'd noticed this, he'd felt that they were too obvious, so he began smiling with his mouth shut. He couldn't help people who spotted them by talking, though, which made it something of a useless effort.

Ryou had also developed a habit of absently running his tongue over the new points. No one noticed but Honda.

.

The school day dragged.

The tightly-knit group of friends had been fraying at the edges lately, though no one cared to admit it. It had begun with Jounouchi attacking Ryou, and the animosity and inherent side-choosing that had come with that; and then Jounouchi spent less time with them and more time trying to find Mai's killer. And _that_ was added to by the fact that Honda had been drifting away from everyone save Jounouchi and spending more time with Ryou -- when he wasn't avoiding the other teenager as much as possible. Otogi had his store to concern himself with, Kaiba was busy with his new theme parks, and though Yuugi and Anzu did their best to keep everyone together and talking to each other, even they were starting to give up. Things had simply changed after Mai's death. It wasn't reversible.

So Ryou was quite glad when the final class was over and he could go home.

He made his way back alone, and hung his coat over the armchair before setting his schoolcase on the kitchen table. Then he changed out of his uniform into normal clothes, and then Bakura took over.

When he returned control to Ryou, it was nearly midnight, and the spirit had once again forgotten to take off his shoes before stepping inside. Ryou went back and toed off his sneakers, checked for blood under his nails, and settled down at the table to finish his homework before starting on his finals' study guides.

He didn't bother to ask the spirit what he'd done. Ryou could tell that Bakura was in one of those moods where he wouldn't deign to explain himself to his landlord.

.

This pattern continued for two more nights. (Ryou had tried in vain to convince Bakura to take off his shoes. Bakura had told him that after becoming a vampire, any space Ryou occupied could never be sacred, so it didn't matter whether he brought shoes that had touched the profane outside world inside or not. Ryou was still working on a reply to that.)

On the morning of the third day, Ryou went to school and learned that Mai's killer had been found.

He was Umezu Junji: a duelist, college-age, with very pale blond hair that could easily be mistaken for white after sunset and from a distance. He had gone to the police station and confessed to the murder, and told them that he had first seen Mai during the Battle City tournament and that she had turned down his challenge, saying he wasn't in her league. It had wounded his pride.

When the detective questioning him asked why he had killed her, Junji couldn't seem to think of a better reason than that.

Kaiba verified that Junji was one of the invited duelists to his tournament, and two days later -- after Ryou had once again wound up missing the better portion of the previous night -- the police managed to find an eyewitness of Mai scorning him. Between that and the confession, the case was considered closed.

Jounouchi had thanked Kaiba for helping. The other teenager had replied that Battle City had brought him enough bad PR, and he wasn't going to allow the press another chance to speculate.

"Thank you anyway," Jounouchi had said.

Kaiba had paused for a moment, before snorting and returning to his book. That was as close to a 'You're welcome' that anyone other than Mokuba or Yuugi would ever get out of him, so Jounouchi dropped the subject.

The Umezu family had protested that their second-oldest son would never do something like this, but since Junji continued to plead guilty, there was nothing to be done.

.

_How did you do that?_ Ryou asked soon afterward, as he was watching the news report on Junji's sentencing. His chemistry textbook sat on his lap.

(There are some things, landlord, that you do not need to know.)

A few moments later, one of the announcers reported that Junji had been sentenced to three years at hard labor. Ryou winced. _The unfortunate guy_. . . .

(If no criminal had been discovered, Jounouchi would have worried her death like a dog with a bone,) Bakura said. (Would **you** rather take his place in jail?)

_No_.

(Then be quiet about it already. You aggravate me.)

Bakura was irrationally irritable, so Ryou assumed that the dreams had been really bad that day and dropped the subject.

He watched the television for another minute and a half, but when the news moved from Junji to a different story, he shut it off and returned to working on his stoichiometric questions.


	21. 20: Judgment

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

"Sayonara" basically means "goodbye forever." You don't say it if you expect to see the other person again in your lifetime.  
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#20: Judgment

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_Be sure your sins will catch up with you_.

.

Christmas was coming.

Domino High was out for winter break, and Ryou was fairly sure that he had passed all his finals. He had _barely_ passed a few, but that was good enough. He was just glad that he no longer had to schedule his days by what he was going to be studying that night. Until school restarted, the only thing Ryou had to keep track of was when he would have to eat again.

He had silently given up on trying to take only a little blood more often than two weeks. He knew Bakura was aware of his decision, but the spirit said nothing, either to mock or otherwise. Ryou was grateful.

Bakura **had** called him foolish earlier that afternoon, for cooking, but he ignored it. He was sure that there would be no consequences in doing that -- Bakura had been preoccupied lately, and he was spending most of his time completely disregarding Ryou's existence. This gave Ryou a certain degree of freedom that he hadn't had since he'd thrown the Sennen Ring aside and asked Honda how to die.

Ryou was washing the last of the dishes when there was a knock on the door.

He sighed and finished soaping up the mixing bowl.

(**Now** what?)

Ryou began rinsing off the bowl. _Such a big deal about an interruption_, he thought, mostly to himself. _What happened to 'we have all eternity'?_

(Be quiet.)

There was another knock, and Ryou set the bowl in the drying rack. _It's **my** head. I can't help thinking. **You** could always stop listening,_ he added as he dried off his hands on his jeans and leaned down to check the creampuffs in the oven one last time.

(Host. Be. quiet.)

Ryou bit his lip. There was a third knock, and he walked to the door in silence.

He blinked when he saw Jounouchi standing outside.

". . . Oh! I'm so sorry! I thought you were someone -- I'm sorry for making you wait, Jounouchi-kun; please, come in."

Jounouchi waved off his contrition. "It's okay. Uh, thanks for letting me in."

"Do you want anything to drink?" Ryou asked. "I have soda. And I'm baking creampuffs -- they should be ready in twenty minutes or so."

"No, no, it's cool. Really." Jounouchi coughed and glanced down at the floor. He continued to stand in the entryway, and didn't trade his shoes for the guest slippers. "I, uh . . . I came here 'cause I needed to apologize."

Ryou blinked. "Apologize?"

"You know. For being such an asshole to you before." Jounouchi shoved his hands into his pockets. "I never should have--"

"It's okay," Ryou interrupted.

Jounouchi looked up at that. "No, it's not. I shouldn't have attacked you. I should have listened when you said -- hell, I shouldn't have **suspected** you in the first place, you're our friend . . . I just. . . ."

Ryou gave him a small smile. "Jounouchi-kun, it's okay. I know how much you felt about her -- it's understandable." His smile faded a little. "And it's not like you acted without reason . . . I've done some horrible things before. . . ."

"No," Jounouchi said, shaking his head. "That wasn't you. Or you were being manipulated into it. And I **am** sorry."

Ryou smiled at him again. "I accept your apology, Jounouchi-kun. I hope . . . I can't understand what you've gone through, but . . . I hope things begin to get better for you."

". . . Yeah. Thanks." Jounouchi scratched the back of his head. "I . . . just wanted to tell you that, y'know? Things have been screwed up for too long. . . ."

Ryou nodded. "Okay. Thank you, Jounouchi-kun."

"All right," Jounouchi said, taking a step back towards the door. "I . . . guess I'll see you when school starts? Or before then. You're going to Yuugi's Christmas party, right?"

"Yep!" Ryou said. "I'll see you around."

"Okay." Jounouchi opened the door, and Ryou held it as he watched the other teenager walk down the hallway. The cold wind made him shiver slightly. "See ya," Jounouchi called over his shoulder.

"Goodbye!" Ryou said with a wave.

When Jounouchi disappeared down the stairs, Ryou pulled the door shut and rubbed his arms vigorously to get the warmth back in them.

(Your ability to lie with a smile always fascinates me, landlord.)

_When was I lying?_ Ryou asked. _He was genuinely sorry_.

(I was referring to your comment about not understanding what he was going through,) Bakura replied. (Ah, but **here** only Honda knows about her, right? Honda, and you, and myself.)

Ryou fell into that certain bitter silence that meant Bakura had once again touched on a sore spot of his, and the spirit chuckled briefly.

(You'll be hungry again in another day,) Bakura added after a few minutes.

_Yes_, Ryou said shortly, setting a spatula in the drying rack.

(Don't wait this time. Go eat tonight.)

_Blood and creampuffs.__ Mmm_, Ryou replied sardonically.

He received the mental feel of a smirk from Bakura for the comment, which surprised him.

(Yes,) the spirit said quietly, (I like you **much** better this way. . . .)

Bakura shut himself back into his soul room with that, and a moment later Ryou checked the oven again.

.

It was funny, Ryou thought to himself later that evening; tonight was the first time he'd eaten without Honda accompanying him. It had gone much easier than the previous ones.

He'd snapped the man's neck, quickly, from behind. It was probably the most merciful way to kill him. He hadn't had to feel Ryou stab into his throat to reach the blood in the carotid artery.

The heart had still been pumping, unaware yet that the man was dead -- it had spurted horribly.

Ryou had taken off his coat before pulling out his knife, remembering Honda's warning, so he was able to hide most of the stains on his shirt and face; but he still had to wait until it was darker before sneaking into a gas station bathroom to wash up.

His shirt was a mess, and he'd have to wash both his coat and his scarf later, but at least his face looked clean and guileless again.

Ryou didn't go home afterwards. That would have meant sleeping, and the echoes of Bakura's dreams were not pleasant. He decided to walk around Domino instead.

.

Ryou arrived at Honda's house a little before two a.m. He didn't know why he went there. He just did.

He found the brunet strapping a duffle bag onto his motorcycle outside the house's wall.

Honda only gave him a sparing glance. "You reek of blood," he said once Ryou was close enough to hear.

"Only to those like us." Ryou's voice was that of someone feeling lazy and well-fed. It made the other teenager's hands twitch, but only slightly.

Then Ryou blinked and took a step back. "Wait, is your dog outside? Will she bark?"

"She's dead," Honda said shortly.

". . . Oh. I'm sorry." Ryou stepped forward again. "What happened?"

"I killed her."

Ryou didn't reply for several moments, and when he did, his voice was very low. "You knew all this time that we could drink from animals?"

"We can't," Honda replied flatly. "I threw it all up."

Ryou was still staring at him with narrowed eyes. Honda could feel the gaze without looking. "I don't remember much after that, until I came around next to a really shredded up body." He let the straps hang lax in his hands. ". . . I **told** you, if you try to avoid eating, that auto-pilot thing kicks in. I'm surprised I didn't get caught then. . . ."

He trailed off, and soon began tying and tightening the straps again, going over a few that he'd already fixed without realizing it. Neither of them spoke for a quarter of a minute.

"You're running away?" Ryou asked, looking at the bike.

"I'm _leaving_," Honda corrected brusquely.

"It doesn't solve anything, you know," Ryou told him. "Trust me. You might think you can start over, but you're always going to be you."

"Shut up," Honda snarled. "He apologized to you, didn't he? He said he was going to."

"Yes."

Honda swore, and yanked viciously on the second-to-last strap. "I can't **listen** to that anymore. It's driving me crazy."

Ryou leaned against the wall. ". . . I guess guilt only comes when it's your human connection," he commented quietly.

Honda looked over at him. "What's **that** supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Ryou replied, sliding his hands into his pockets. "I was just thinking."

Ryou watched in silence as Honda finished checking the straps over the duffle and swung onto his bike. When he picked up his helmet, Ryou spoke again.

"Sayonara, Honda."

Honda turned and gave him a look. "Do you really think we'll be that lucky?"

"I can hope," Ryou replied. "I can still do that."

". . . ." Honda looked like he was about to say something, but then the shield he kept around himself resealed its tiny crack, and he pulled on the helmet instead. "Sayonara, Bakura."

He started the motorcycle and kicked away from the curb. Honda drove quietly down the street, wanting to get as far as possible before his absence was noticed.

Ryou continued to lean against the wall for over ten minutes after Honda had disappeared from view. He ran his tongue absently along his fangs.

.

It didn't matter what they hadn't managed to say that night. There would be plenty of time for those words when they met again, and were old enough to have changed.


	22. 21: The World

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

And this will be goodbye. Thank you, everyone who's reviewed.

Happy Halloween. Go egg a car.  
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#21: The World

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"Between the conception  
And the creation  
Between the emotion  
And the response  
Falls the Shadow  
  
Life is very long  
  
Between the desire  
And the spasm  
Between the potency  
And the existence  
Between the essence  
And the descent  
Falls the Shadow. . . .  
  
This is the way the world ends  
Not with a bang but a whimper."

.

Ryou slept in the next morning, but his rest was fitful. It was almost noon by the time he made the bed and walked into the bathroom.

(He was weak,) Bakura commented, picking up on Ryou's thoughts. (Only cowards run away.)

Ryou dragged the brush through his hair and considered cutting it, the way he did every morning when the tangles were bad. _You would think that_.

(And what is that supposed to mean?)

_It means what I said_, Ryou replied. _You think that letting go is cowardice_.

Bakura had noticed the odd way he'd phrased the sentence. Ryou had expected him to.

(. . . I think that assuming you can outrun your troubles is cowardice, landlord,) Bakura finally said. (That is not the same as 'letting go.')

_If you believe so_.

(Your riddles are getting irritating. What are you trying to imply?)

Ryou sighed and yanked the comb through his hair a little more roughly. _I'm **not** implying anything_. To cut off an argument before it could begin, he added_, I'm not saying you aren't brave, either. I know evil can be brave_.

(Poetic.)

_Mm_, Ryou replied distractedly. He pulled his hair back from his face. _You need to teach me how to look older than I am_.

(Teach you?) Bakura asked with mild amusement.

_Well, you're younger than me, aren't you?_ Ryou said.

There was a long pause.

Ryou persisted. _You **are**, right?_

The mirror registered a shift behind him. Ryou looked up at the glass, and Bakura was leaning against the wall. His arms were crossed over his chest.

(Yes,) Bakura said flatly. (I died at fifteen. What of it?)

_You look older than that_, Ryou replied. _Sometimes you look like you're twenty, even. Teach me how_.

He'd thrown the thief off twice in one hour, which was something of a record. Ryou would have been proud if he'd believed that keeping score meant anything.

He had just started to wash his face when Bakura snorted. (Very well. I'll teach you how to look older -- if you do something for me in return.)

_You're already immortal_, Ryou said. _What **more** do I have to do for you?_

(Don't be a smartass,) Bakura replied. (Besides, I'm not asking for much. I just want you to build a game for me.)

Ryou dried off his face slowly. "You're going after Yuugi-kun again, aren't you?" he soon asked, his voice a little muffled by the towel.

"Clever, clever landlord."

"What kind of game?"

"A game about the past."

Ryou looked at Bakura in the mirror. "You're finally going to tell the other Yuugi-kun about Kuru Eruna, then?"

After a second of silence, Ryou looked back down at the counter. Bakura's eyes could be very frightening when he felt cornered.

Bakura unfolded his arms, and stepped methodically across the tile. He set his hands on the counter, one on each side of Ryou, before leaning forward and whispering, "And how, exactly, do **you** know about Kuru Eruna?"

Ryou swallowed and kept his gaze on the counter. "Your dreams," he said quietly. "They're. . . ." He searched for the right word, and finally just decided on "Loud. You've been dreaming about it since you saw that tablet in father's museum. And you've been dreaming a lot more these last couple of days." Ryou paused, started to say something, and then fell silent again. His fingers tightened around the towel.

Bakura didn't reply, and finally Ryou tilted his head up and looked at him via the mirror. "I'll build it for you. But only if you do something for me."

"And what's that?" Bakura's voice was clipped and cold.

Ryou walked out of the bathroom. He had to pass through Bakura's right arm to do so, as well as part of his torso and shoulder, and the sensation made him shiver involuntarily and wrap his arms across his chest.

At the end of the inside wall, about a foot and a half past the bathroom door, was the door to the Monster World room. Ryou went inside. Bakura followed him.

Ryou walked past the table and opened the closet. Inside, underneath a set of guest quilts, sat the large case that he'd kept all of his and Bakura's lead figurines in. He set the quilts on the game table and pulled the case out into the room, and opened it.

Yuugi and the others' figurines were still in the diorama. Most of the other figures looked familiar, but some of them were so twisted or smashed that he couldn't recognize who they used to be.

Ryou sat down on the floor and started sifting through the figures.

"Have I ever told you how much I dislike your brooding, Bakura Ryou?" the spirit asked in a bored tone. He leaned against the side of the table. "You're far too young to be feeling such nostalgia."

"Are they still in here?"

"Who?"

"The ones who didn't wake up," Ryou said. "Any of them."

"Yes."

"Then let them go. And I'll build the game for you."

"She won't come back to you, you know," Bakura told him. "A body can only exist for so long without a soul. The ones that haven't been taken off life support already will die as soon as they return."

"That's okay," Ryou said quietly, picking up a figurine shaped like Mihara, a former classmate of his. "I accepted that a long time ago. At least they'll be able to go on now."

Ryou set the figurine back in the case, and waited for an answer.

". . . Very well, landlord. You have a deal."

Ryou shut the case and stood up, but he didn't put it back into the closet. "When will you do it?"

"After the game is built," he replied.

"You don't trust me?"

Bakura cynically raised an eyebrow. "Think of it as motivation."

"Fine," Ryou said. "Deal."

He put the quilts back into the closet before leaving the room.

.

Less than an hour later, Ryou had finished up in the bathroom, gotten dressed, and gotten ready to go out. Bakura had ceased to see a reason to remain separate, since Ryou never looked at him willingly anyway, and had gone back to the Ring.

As Ryou was tying his shoes, he said, "You're going to have to make some plans for the game, and what it will look like, so I'll know what supplies I need to buy."

(You're starting on it already? I'm impressed by your dedication.)

"No, I'm not starting on it yet. I just told you, I need plans first. Blueprints. A map of the terrain. _Some_thing." Ryou finished with his shoes and picked up his scarf. "You'll have time to think while I shop," he added, wrapping the scarf around his neck.

(What are you shopping for, if not supplies?)

"I need to get Christmas presents."

(. . . Christmas presents.)

Ryou stopped talking aloud once he opened the door -- the neighbors two doors down were very gossipy. _Oh, and a Christmas cake, but I'll get that when I'm done with everything else_.

(**Why**?) Bakura asked.

Ryou finished locking the door behind him and slipped the keys into his coat pocket. _Yuugi-kun's party is coming soon, and I have to get gifts for everyone. I'll start on your game after that_.

There was silence from the spirit, which soon turned into a chuckle. The chuckle became full-out laughter, and then Bakura returned to his soul room, leaving Ryou to wonder what was so funny.

A moment later he shrugged to himself and headed for the stairs.

Ryou glanced up at the sky as he walked down. After two days of no snow, it had begun again late this morning: slow, lazy flakes that melted almost as soon as they fell to the sidewalk.

_I'll have to get cheap gifts_, Ryou realized. _I can't afford to be extravagant, if I want to be able to pay for the game supplies_.

He was a little disappointed at that -- he didn't want to shortchange his friends, especially after they'd stayed with him through all the weirdness of the past year -- but there was no helping it.

_Oh well_. Ryou tucked the end of his scarf into his trench coat, and absently ran his tongue over a fang as he stepped off the stairs onto the sidewalk. _It should work out. They'll understand_.

Ryou wiped away a snowflake that had fallen onto his cheek, and started walking towards the bus station.


End file.
